Warp and Weft
by FallingStarXan
Summary: Like the warp and weft of fabric, two worlds are weaving together. Kanji's bathhouse is clearing of fog and the Shadows getting restless when an oddly familiar girl, Kajiko, stumbles in. The time to save either K. Tatsumi has run out, yet their struggle to survive will inexorably tangle up the notions of male and female for everyone involved. Introducing the P4 Genderbent universe.
1. This IS the real me

**Author's Note: So, as the description suggests, this story introduces the characters of a (not _the _but _a_) genderbent universe of Persona 4. Usually I'd just want to let you loose on the story but I wanted to put a little disclaimer up. Since as far as I know, there isn't a standard fanon set of genderbends for the characters, these characters will seem to be completely brand new. All the names and slight changes to them were my own ideas. _This being said_, one of the things that I _really_ want to impart upon you is that _none of these genderbends are OCs_. The most you can call it is an AU (which is what it literally is, of course), but they are all very much the characters that you know and love. This story is really a character _study,_ exploring the aspects of people's personality that can never change as well as the aspects that are generated by society's view on gender. So you should really think of the genderbends as elaborated offshoots of the canon characters, not as OCs.  
**

**But I think I've talked enough. I won't get much more into what this story is about, because I think you deserve to see for yourself! So, without further ado, please enjoy!**

**Persona 4 and the Shin Megami Tensei franchise belong to Atlus**

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**Warp and Weft** – a textile term describing the two directions of weaving; the threads of the fabric running lengthwise are referred as _warp,_ while those crossing and overlapping them at right angles are called _weft._

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**#01:**** This IS the real me**

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The past few days hadn't gone all that swimmingly for Kajiko Tatsumi. She knew full well that the world was full of shit, but she hadn't expected it all to hit the fan at the same time, and even then she wouldn't have figured it would all land on _her_. That's what it felt like, anyway; probably there were a few people somewhere having worse days than she, but it was hard to top… this.

Kajiko stumbled in the fog. With a violent tug of her leg she shook off whatever had wrapped itself around her ankle – she didn't even _want_ to know what it was – and high-tailed it out of the corridor. So far all the doors in this place had opened to her touch – not that she really wanted to touch them all that badly, because they were pretty damn scummy-looking – but one of these times she might hit one without a broken lock and she didn't think she could hold down the panic in the face of such an event. Not that she wasn't trapped already, by the sheer size of this rat maze.

So strike that – if 'swimmingly' was what the past few days _weren't_, they'd gone just about 'drowningly', with extra emphasis on the sinking. First she'd been this week's spotlight delinquent after those TV idiots ran a story about her vendettas against the biker gangs. Didn't even have the decency to call her a vigilante or something, just assumed she was one of _that_ _sort_. And then, not long after, she'd woken up to this eerie, foggy desolation. Since then, she'd been wandering for what could have been days through mazes of mist-filled rooms, her nerves getting sawed at like catgut fiddle strings in the hands of a tone-deaf amateur.

The only thing that could make it all worse would be ending the day strung up on the wires, like that announcer and the Konishi boy from the school she was technically supposed to be (but wasn't) attending. Had those two guys been thrown into this hellhole too, before they'd been killed? Kajiko was starting to hate herself for being so oblivious. First that cool-headed, mysterious boy had talked to her, and she'd been too preoccupied with hiding her stupid prissy blushes to notice that the whole thing made no sense. A guy her age talking serious business with her? Calling her 'intriguing'? Treating her like an _equal_? Like _that_ was normal. And then those other two punks had followed her around, until she'd confronted them and eventually chased them off.

Had they been trying to warn her that she'd be the next victim? Kajiko leaned against cold steel bars, pulling the zipper of her grey school jacket even farther up and sullenly burying her chilled lips into the collar. She tried once again to knit her thoughts together, wishing she was as good at thinking as she was at knitting. If any of the kids had been trying to warn her, why couldn't have they just told her straight out? Probably one of them had been the kidnapper, come to think of it. Her money was on Mister Mysterious, because the other two kids following her had been total klutzes, and besides, she half-recognized them from around town. They weren't really the murdering sort. But that boy who approached her was a complete stranger and that was pretty suspicious. "Ain't it my damn luck," the girl muttered to herself, "First guy to think I'm worth taking seriously, he takes me seriously enough to think I'm worth killing."

The words cut through the faint and fuzzy drone that had been driving her crazy ever since she woke up here. It wasn't enough to be all alone; she had to start hearing things, too. The noises mostly sounded like TV static, but every so often a whisper of disembodied human speech would seem to come out of the gloom, and that was seriously freaking Kajiko out because _no one was ever there_. It was like how the shadows started to look like figures and faces when she stared at them for too long. This all unnerved her, but speaking aloud sometimes felt like it could dispel the creeping illusions.

_… on the news, right?… the Tatsumi girl… heard she _always_ skips school, what a weirdo… must be _such_ a disgrace to her…_

"Figure I oughta draw a map or something," she declared to the inside walls of the cell. Her tone turned the words into a warning, as if she could intimidate her prison by threatening to expose its true nature. "Cause every damn time I try to retrace my steps it's like the frikkin' place _moves!_"

The voices receded a little, their words becoming indistinguishable. The static still remained; faint, persistent, and absolutely infuriating. It was like an unscratchable itch. To fight it, Kajiko began to hum rather aggressively under her breath.

Nearly all the rooms looked alike. High ceilings obscured by dusty fog, iron-wrought cells in corners, smeared, unreadable graffiti on the walls. The windows were glazed and nearly opaque and had been sheeted with chicken wire. They were all too strong to break – the throbbing in Kajiko's knuckles was a shameful reminder of this fact. Everything was very shady-looking, and, to be honest, it seemed like the perfect place to murder someone. What puzzled Kajiko was that her kidnapper hadn't gotten around to that yet, and she assumed that this fact was probably what was causing her acute case of paranoia.

_… if she were _my_ daughter, I would have thrown her out… what does she think she… father must be so ashamed… _

She started walking, and walking quickly. There had to be some way to get rid of these voices; they were driving her up the wall. "Don't know what they're talking about," Kajiko growled as she shoved another door open with her shoulder. "It isn't like that at _all!_"

But this time the voices didn't go away; in fact, they became stronger, clearer, more distinct. "_I hear she refused to have that scar removed, even when they said they could do it,_" a girl's voice said in a stage whisper. "_Isn't that, like, something only a crazy person would do? It's as if she wants to look like a criminal._"

"It was because it woulda cost Dad a crapload of money!" Kajiko hissed, before she could stop herself. She touched the spot on her forehead. "That's all!" She knew that responding to the voices was a terrible idea. It only made them louder and clearer and she _couldn't_ acknowledge them, otherwise she really would be crazy.

"_I can't imagine what her father must think,_" a creaking male voice grumbled. "_If I were him I'd knock some sense into her. Parents these days are too soft._"

Kajiko ground her teeth. This _had_ to be more than just an illusion – she was really hearing these voices, and wherever they were coming from, they were all talking about _her_. Was her kidnapper trying to crush her spirit before he closed in for the kill? Talk about adding insult to injury; would this, the sound of what the people of Inaba really thought of her, be the last thing in her life she would hear?

"_Is she just doing it for attention?_" scoffed a youth. "_It's not like any guy would actually want a freak like that for a girlfriend. If she's even into guys at all._"

She was going to snap if this kept up. She could _feel_ herself snapping.

The eager gossip of a rumor-spreader. "_So is it true that Kajiko's the leader of that biker gang now?_"

The jeering of classmates. "_Hey, Kaji-CHAN! Can you knit this guy a cute little cozy with your gang sign on it? He wants to join up!_"

The careless cruelty of adults. "_I saw her give something to this little girl the other day… Next time that happens, I'm calling the cops! She's bound to be up to something illegal._"

Kajiko snapped, as she knew she would. "No, I was _NOT_!" she yelled, balling her fists, squaring off against the fog and static. "You don't know _shit_ about me!" She remembered that little girl vividly, as well as the tiny plush keychain that Kajiko, the daughter of a textile shop owner, had sewn for her out of work scraps on a whim. But the next day, the little girl had been crying in the park, mourning the loss of her new toy. Someone had informed the mother of where her daughter's keychain had come from, and she'd promptly flushed it down the toilet. The memory of the incident still boiled Kajiko's blood. "Who the hell's there?" she shouted. "Come out and try saying this bullshit to my face, why don't you?"

She heard a low rushing noise behind her and wheeled around, her pulse stuttering into high gear. The room was still empty. Why couldn't there have been someone standing there? Even the kidnapper himself, whoever that might be, would have been a welcome sight. But unoccupied space could fill itself with far worse things than reality could conjure up.

"_Is this really all I've got to work with?_"

Her veins froze solid. Rising out of the static was a new voice. It reverberated with a demonically distorted chorus, and its tone swung back and forth between syrupy condescension and a feral snarl, but it was unmistakable.

"_An EMPTY prison? How pathetic!_"

The voice was her own.

"_I was SO hoping for a few MANLY recruits for my street gang_," complained Kajiko's distorted voice. "_I guess even after I schooled those posers on live TV no one here in Inaba had the BALLS to take me seriously!_"

Kajiko craned her neck up and squinted through the fog. "Wh-what the _hell_…?" she whispered, aghast. "How'd they do that? Get my voice in here…? I never said…"

"_Ha!_" her voice sharply barked."_As if I care!_" Its words became frantic, falling fast into the air before the ones preceding it had even begun to echo. "_I'll just wait here for someone to try to find me and PROVE that they want to join my crew. Why should I waste my time with anyone who doesn't really want to be around me, anyway? People too scared to challenge society are nothing but mindless sheep, after all._"

"Where's that voice _coming from?_" the girl growled. She shook a clenched fist at the ceiling. "You try'ina make fun of me? That… that isn't even what I sound like!"

"_Everyone always thinks I'm putting on an act,_" the ghostly voice of not-Kajiko added venomously. "_Or that I'm _'troubled'_, or that I'm compensating for the fact that I'm a GIRL!_ _But they're all wrong! My only trouble is from people who don't see that THIS is the real me. I act this way... because I LIKE it!_"

Kajiko was too enraged to notice that the shadows behind her had begun to move in a far more tangible, autonomous fashion than simple optic effects ever should. "Hey!" she shouted. "Whoever's out there had better be listening! Because I'm only gonna warn you one more time to knock it off before I knock _you _off, you got that?"

"_I probably WOULD have wanted to join those biker gangs, if I didn't hafta beat them up every time they laughed at me! But once I put together a gang of my own, NOBODY won't take me seriously. And I'm through with making all these pathetic excuses for myself, or for anyone else!_" The voice let out a short spasm of mirth followed by a gasping intake of air. "_My name is Kajiko Tatsumi… and I just loooove! Being! BAD!_"

"Yeah, keep talking, punk!" snarled Kajiko, fuming, even though she was secretly quite scandalized by what the voice was implying. "Your little impression of me might seem funny now but we'll see who's still laughing when I find you!" She marched down the corridor, trying to follow the voice and pinpoint its source. And somewhere deep down, Kajiko felt a kind of frightened desperation, because the voice was starting to get fainter. And when it disappeared, she'd be alone once again, with only the fog and the shadows for company.

"_And I knooow I'm not the only one who's sick and tired of being told what to do, or what to be!_" The voice kept on going, but it was fading fast. Kajiko pushed through door after nearly identical door, bumping into them and missing the handles on occasion because of the poor visibility that the fog created, trying frantically not to lose the trail. She could still make out the words, though, and they were making progressively less sense.

"_So welcome, viewers of the Midnight Channel, to my tenebrously televised exposé of the Shadow World penitentiary, where I, your host, will be sifting through the dregs of your deepest rebellious desires to find some_ naughty_ criminal elements!_" Another fit of hysterical laughter. Was that _music_ that seemed to be accompanying not-Kajiko's words? How bizarre was that? Because now, coupled with the music, the words kind of sounded like an intro to a really shitty reality TV program, and that wasn't so much scary as just plain weird. Was this all a crazy lucid dream she was having?

"_And we're not just talking about a few snot-nosed troublemakers or noisy, pesky bikers here, viewers,_" not-Kajiko went on gleefully. "_You'd better call your local police station right away, because this shit's about to get illegal._" It chuckled under its breath, but there was no humor in it. The tone of the words suddenly dropped its hammy cadence and became low, menacing, monotonous."_I know you're watching this, boys and girls. I'll be waiting for you on the other side to test your resolve_… _If you honestly think I'm worth saving, you're going to have to _prove_ it._"

And then, quite suddenly, the voice and the music cut out and vanished, along with the background static and all other sound except that of her own footsteps. Never before had silence fallen so loudly in her ears. She slid to a halt, midway through crossing yet another long and drafty hall.

Kajiko waited and the moments stretched out. There was only her slightly labored breathing left keeping some sort of time, otherwise she thought she might lose track of how long a moment was. Her whole situation had suddenly become a lot harder to grasp. A guy kidnaps her and throws her into some giant abandoned prison before he kills her? Plausible. Backed up by shitty music, an insane disembodied voice masquerading as Kajiko herself pretends to host a TV show on the Midnight Channel about looking for gang recruits? _Ridiculous_. And the sheer madness of it was terrifying, because it sliced through all the tethers that held Kajiko to solid, comforting reality.

And then, out of the blue, some sixth sense struck a scent and a shiver ran up her spine. The swift feeling had come over her that she was being watched. As hairs prickled on her neck under the collar of her jacket, she slowly turned her head. Adrenaline shot through her veins. In the corners of her peripheral vision, she had seen movement.

She whirled around, faced the source of the movement, and then stumbled back in a panic. Come to think of it, maybe an empty room wasn't such a bad thing after all. After countless times being creeped out by nothing, she figured that any kind of something couldn't possibly be worse than what her subconscious could provide, what her imagination could use to fill the void. And she used that to comfort herself, feeling prepared for the worst.

But apparently she had a pretty crappy imagination, because what she saw was way, _way_ beyond the worst she could have pictured, and after factoring the new ingredient of lunacy to this place, pretty much anything should have been on the table.

And this was quite true. In this case, what was on the table was a face. Or, technically it was on the table_cloth_, but the point was that there was now a table where there hadn't been one before, and it had a face, a big blue mask with empty eyes, and the legs of the table had hands which were moving, and that the cup and the very long knife and the stick and the disk whirling in springy circles above the table were also very much moving, and overall the point was _really_, in the end, that the whole thing was moving _towards her_.

All these realizations had taken place in the span of a single second. In the next second, Kajiko let out a strangled yell and almost tripped over backwards in her haste to get away. The table scuttled forward, crablike, and the sheer _wrongness_ of it, the fact that every part of it that should have been inanimate – it was a _table_, for god's sake! – was writhing and the one part that should have been moving – the face – didn't shift its expression one bit as it rushed towards her, threw Kajiko right over the edge into the depths of Panic Canyon.

It was time to bail. Kajiko turned and sprinted, hoping to get to the far end of the hallway in time to slam the door on the monster's face, before it caught up to her and… she wasn't even sure what it would do, actually, except crawl all over her with those nasty hands like a giant cave cricket, but she wasn't going to be so foolhardy as to try and find out. And she had nearly reached the other side when something whooshed past her ear. Kajiko slammed into the door and found herself going cross-eyed as she tried to focus on the blade of the table's knife, which was quivering inches from her nose, buried in the metal.

And, as if things couldn't get bad enough, the door handle refused to budge. Kajiko rattled it as hard as she could, kicked it, screamed a curse at it, and then planted her back to the wall, flattening herself against the door as the table rushed towards her.

Her arm moved on its own, out of an instinct for self-preservation, and the next second her fingers were wrapped around the handle of the long knife and it was being wrenched from the door and swung through the air as the table sprang towards her. There was a shout, probably from Kajiko herself. The blade of the knife struck one of the table's legs, passed through, and smacked into its underside. The monster table flew backwards, its cloth flapping.

"Not so tough now!" the girl crowed, wildly brandishing her new weapon in front of her, slicing clumsy arcs through space between her and the table, which picked itself up, unsteadily balancing on its remaining three legs. This just heightened Kajiko's thrill of power. "You want some more'a this? Wanna have another go at me, huh? Bring it on! I'll cut your creepy face to— oh _shit…_"

It really _wasn't_ her lucky day. The blade had started to wobble violently in her hand, and she might have added the words "as if possessed" to describe its behavior, except that using such a phrase in the figurative sense would have been idiotic since it was clearly a literal truth. The knife wrenched forward of its own accord, or more likely, of the table's own accord, nearly managing to tear itself from the girl's grip, but she grimly hung onto it with both hands. "Argh! Let _go_ of it, you stupid table! Let go of the damn thing so I can kick your ass in a fair fight!"

The blue face, rather unsurprisingly, didn't change its expression, and the knife didn't stop struggling to escape, yanking Kajiko from side to side as it did so. If this kept up, she might dislocate a shoulder. The knife jerked hard to the left. "Agh!" she yelled. To the right. "Ulp!" Upwards, nearly lifting her bodily off the floor. "Shit!" It twisted sharply, backflipping in her grasp, and aimed its point directly at her chest. "_Gah!_"

Once again, the tables had quite literally turned on her, but at least now she knew where she stood with this demonic piece of furniture. It wanted her dead; that was a simple enough goal to try and thwart. She braced herself against the door, pushing back as hard as she could to keep the shuddering knife from doing what it was managing to do anyway, which was to inexorably inch towards her heart. The table watched all of this with impassive calm.

"You're just… frikkin' enjoying this," Kajiko muttered through gritted teeth, straining against the possessed knife, "Aren't you?"

The table chose at this point to toss the cup at her as well, which flew in a lazy arc, bounced off Kajiko's forehead, and plopped to the ground. "Don't you _dare_ laugh at me," she told the table angrily, trying to keep the knife handle from slipping from her palms, which were really starting to sweat. "I know you're laughing, you three-legged dipshit. I can just tell."

The knife began to twist in Kajiko's hands, trying to use torsion on break free, or maybe it was just preparing itself for what it would to her vital organs once it buried itself in her chest. Out of the corner of her eye Kajiko noticed the fat slice that the knife had carved into the door when the table had thrown it. The _metal_ door… And the knife in her hands was trembling with tension, like an arrow about to be fired from a bow and _just how fast could she dodge an possessed knife at point blank range, anyway?_

What the hell. It was all she had. She inched over, buckled her knees slightly, so the locked door handle was pressing against the small of her back. She battled with the knife a bit, raised it up over her head so that the tip was aiming down, trying to make this all look like part of a natural, futile struggle with the weapon. And then she let go and the knife snapped forward, slicing through the air in a straight path towards her heart.

Or, that is, the place where her heart _would_ have been, if she hadn't been diving off to the side the instant the handle left her grip. Even before she hit the ground, she saw sparks and heard a sharp, screeching clang, and she hoped like hell that her plan had worked. She landed, rolled, twisted, managed to plant her feet on the ground, and propelled herself at the door, which now had the knife embedded hilt-deep into what used to be the lock.

The laughing table didn't even have a chance to realize that its quarry was escaping. When Kajiko's shoulder hit the door it practically exploded open, and she flew through it with little grace and high velocity. Without even questioning the assumption, she was expecting another corridor, like the last one. At the very least, her brain's sense of balance expected a floor to land on, at the same height as the one in the other room, thank you very much. But instead Kajiko tumbled down without stopping, her stomach lurching, her skin crackling with static as it passed through the pulsating pattern of stripes – blood red and black – that had burned itself into her retina the moment the door had opened.

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**And just one final thing before you either leave or read the next chapter... give the story a shot****. I decided to go with something a little risky; no strong focus on shipping to draw in that crowd (and I'm usually one of that crowd, too, so I feel ya), starting off from the POV of a semi-canon character, having a lot of introspection, starting by focusing on just one character out of the group, and so on. But do give it a chance; I think you'll find it interesting, at the very least. Persona is all about the complexities of character, and people's inner struggles and such, and that's really what inspired this story. **


	2. I didn't mistake you, did I?

**Author's Note: Don't forget to take your time reading this story! I know it's kind of an odd thing to put at the header of a fanfic, but I know from experience that one of the most uncomfortable feelings a person can have is the one you get when you're skimming a story, trying to reach the "interesting" part but not really knowing what that will be. And usually, when I read it again, I realize that the interesting bits were all the things I skipped over. So do relax and try to enjoy the natural pacing of this story, and ANY other story you read on here. And please, enjoy yourself!**

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**#02: I didn't mistake you, did I?**

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Time seemed to slow as Kajiko fell. Seconds passed by as if ticking through molasses, until suddenly the cold, rushing blackness was replaced by heat and steam and a wash of soft orange and peachy pink light, mottled somewhat in her vision by the bruise-green afterimage of the stripy vortex. Not that she had much time to admire the change in scenery, though. She smacked into the floor face-first, all the breath she had left whooshing out of her.

At first she didn't really want to jump right back up again. It wasn't as if she didn't know what it felt like to take a hard fall, though, or a sound punch to the face. That happened to her all the time. Being attacked by a table and falling through a portal, though… _that_ was very new. She felt entitled to a moment's recovery.

"Ooooh…" said a man's voice, twanging with simpering sympathy. This was followed by a _tsk_ of chiding disappointment. "Oh my… that looked like it _hurt_."

It had, but none of that mattered to Kajiko. The notion that she had _company_, real and corporeal human company, was, after days of solitude, almost too optimistic of an idea to take in. Even though this new voice sounded like it belonged to a total prick.

"And missing the water by just a few feet, too!" the voice went on. "So close, but not quite there… Someone really must not be having a lucky day…"

_Tell me about it_, Kajiko thought. She muzzily began to push herself off the ground. Her face stung, especially her nose, which was clogged with liquid and ached a good deal. She tasted blood, and hoped her nose wasn't legitimately broken. "Who… the heck… are you…?" Kajiko managed to grunt. The words came out sounding rather gravelly and hoarse, probably due to the dysfunction in the nose department.

"Who, _me?_" the male voice whined, as if wounded by the question. "Oh, come now… Haven't we been _over_ this already? It's getting to be _soooo _boring, repeating all this to you every time, when you'll never believe me anyway. _I_ am a Shadow of your repressed inner se—"

The male stopped speaking quite abruptly because Kajiko had finally peeled her face off the ground and lifted it up to get a look at who she was talking to.

It was hard to get a clear picture, though, through the steam. The first and most obvious thing that Kajiko noticed was the fact that her new company was apparently wearing nothing but a towel which served as a flimsy loincloth. She could see he was quite tall and well-muscled, with light hair which, with its roughly slicked-back style, reminded her a lot of her own. The afterimage that Kajiko was still trying to shake off just made it harder to discern the minutiae of his features, and it almost made it look like the man – or, was _boy_ more appropriate? – had a shadowy purple aura.

Kajiko opened her mouth to speak – though she wasn't so sure what to say – but the naked boy beat her to it. He cringed and shielded his eyes as if the sight was too much to take. "_Ew!_" he yelped. "Guh-_ross!_"

Gingerly, Kajiko touched her upper lip. "It's just a little blood, you wuss," she muttered, examining the stained tips of her fingers. "You don't have to get so..."

But apparently that wasn't what was on the boy's mind at all. "You're a _girl!_" he exclaimed in disgust.

This was probably the worst thing that the boy could have possibly said. Kajiko bounded to her feet, glaring furiously and putting up her fists. "Hey! So what if I am? You got some kinda _problem_ with that?"

The boy skirted back from her, as if she were the smear from a squashed slug. "_Girls_ aren't allowed in here," he whined on. "This _bad, bad_ bathhouse is for young, handsome _men_ only. Didn't you read the sign at the entrance?" He sighed melodramatically. "I mean, how _exactly_ am I supposed to find _steamy romance_ when no one suitable even _bothers_ to show up! Ugh… I'm just sooo _lonely _in here!"

"Well— heck, how was I supposed to read your damn sign?" protested Kajiko, still feeling rather discriminated against. So she wasn't good enough for this punk? In truth, she was beginning to notice some very off-putting things about her new company, but she desperately wanted this not to be the case, so she let herself be selectively deaf. Deaf to the emphasis the boy was putting on… _certain_ subjects, but perhaps more importantly, deaf to the breathy, buzzing, distorted echoes that accompanied his words. Deaf to the fact that despite this, his voice was still strangely familiar. "I didn't come in through the _entrance_, did I? I fell outta that…" She looked up and her train of thought stalled, perplexed. "Hey! Where'd it go?" she said. "That wasn't what I fell through! That's just an ordinary hole in the ceiling! Why isn't it… stripy?"

"Still… You know what they say, when life gives you lemons…" The boy clicked his tongue in disapproval, weighing the options. "You don't think any of the _men_ who came with you are open to… experimentation?"

Kajiko thought this over. "What," she finally said flatly, "What the hell are you talking about?" Once again, her brain feigned ignorance so it only had to respond to the part of the question that she felt equipped to discuss comfortably. "I didn't come with any… anyone else!" She scowled. "Listen, asshole, I've had enough of your going on about irrelevant bullshit. If you don't want me here, then show me to the damn exit already!"

The steam-shrouded boy rubbed the back of his neck. When he spoke next his voice was jarringly normal – lower, rougher, without its vexing whine, unsure. "You mean you… got in here by accident?" he said, a bit crestfallen. "Not… _looking_ for me? But how could you…?"

Perhaps it was the change in tone; Kajiko was struck by an inexplicable twinge of compassion. She didn't quite know why, but she thought she understood what this bizarre individual was feeling right now. "I… sorta wish someone was looking for me, too," she admitted gruffly. "Be nice to know if someone cared, I guess." Kajiko shuffled her feet. "Shit, it's hot in here," she mumbled.

She tugged at the jacket zipper, which was tickling the skin near her throat. Even though the steam was clearing up somewhat, making it less humid and muggy, the temperature in this bathhouse was whole orders of magnitude higher than in the prison area. And, now that the steam was rolling back, she was able to finally get a handle on her new location. She turned on point, taking it all in. Warm colors dominated the atmosphere, a wash of pink and orange from the lanterns that hung from the rafters and jutted out of the walls. The floors were wooden, and, as the boy had pointed out, the raised bath at the center of the room was just next to where Kajiko had fallen. And through the hole in this room's ceiling, she simply saw another ceiling, that of the floor above.

It really _was_ hot. She unzipped the gray school jacket and fanned out the bottom of her black skull T-shirt, which had been clinging damply to her skin.

"Oh _my_," the boy said rather suddenly, his affectations returning. "Looks like the place is finally clearing up. Well, I'd _love_ to stay and chat… hah, no I wouldn't… but I've just got so much to_ do! _Tootaloo!" Kajiko wheeled around, about to protest, but the boy had his back to her already and was swanning out the nearest exit. "Oooh!" he giggled as the door swung shut. "This is so _exciting…!_"

"What— wait— come back!" Kajiko said in horror. "D-don't leave me alone again!" Her ears pinked as she realized how weirdly needy that sounded. "Shit… that's not what I…!" Still struggling to remove her jacket, she sprinted for the door and, seeing no lock, kicked it down with vengeful force. "You gotta tell me how to get out of here!"

She stumbled out into the hall, and swore. The boy had vanished completely, and she hadn't even got a clear look at his face, hadn't got the chance to confirm or deny the suspicion that he was someone she knew. And, to her disgust, the hallway was more of the same architectural schema from the bathing room, with no navigation markers, just more dreamlike repetition. "Aw, _hell!_" Kajiko yelled at the empty hall, "This isn't a real bathhouse! It's another goddamn maze, isn't it?" She wrenched her jacket off and snapped it out before tying it around her waist. Where could that kid have gone?

Furious, she turned a corner, opened a door at random, and saw another bathing room, this one a little more spacious but otherwise identical to the last. "I'm not kidding around, you butt-naked weirdo!" she called, sticking her head into the room. "Get back here or I'll—"

"I _thought_ I knew you!" The boy's voice came from the hall behind her, startling Kajiko badly. Its eerie resonance was really very noticeable, to the point where it didn't even sound human. "I didn't mistake you, did I? You really _are_…"

Kajiko slammed the door and turned the moment she heard the voice, and then jerked back in surprise. She could see the boy clearly now, and she hadn't been imagining the aura around him one bit. He glowed with a dark halo, lines of shadow rising from him like a thundercloud. His eyes were a reptilian yellow. But she'd been right – she _did_ know him. His hair was cropped to the nape of his neck instead of shoulder length, and his features were molded to match his gender, but there were those same cheekbones, that same nose, and, most tellingly, the same pattern of piercings – two to one ear, three to another, and a tiny stud in one nostril – and the same double-crossed scar over one eyebrow.

He looked, in other words, just like her.

"What the hell _are_ you?" she demanded shrilly. "And why do you look like…"

"_I_ am a Shadow," the boy stated proudly. "A reflection of the _true_ inner self." He looked at her critically. "But I'm not supposed to be _your _inner self! This is all wrong…!" His voice dropped to a resentful grumble. "How did I get fobbed off with some _girl_ version of me? I _hate_ girls! They're so… _inconsiderate_. That's why I like men _sooo _much better."

"Well, _guys_ aren't too damn tolerant either!" Kajiko snarled. "I would know!" First a voice sounding like her, then a boy looking like her… it was like the whole facility was set up to ridicule Kajiko. And she didn't take that kind of crap. Not from biker gangs, not from laughing tables, and certainly not from demonic male doppelgangers. "If you're not _my_ Shadow, then whose Shadow are you? Who are you?"

"_My_ name is Kanji Tatsumi," the Shadow boy smirked. "And my boring, in-denial other self is… well, _hellooo_ there, handsome… he's standing right behind you."

Surprised, Kajiko turned around. Even at a distance, with the last vestiges of steam wafting through the air, there was no mistaking the figure. Not only was he basically identical in appearance to the Shadow, he was dressed almost exactly like Kajiko herself. His Yasogami High uniform jacket was draped on his shoulders, as if it were a cape, and he was sporting the same skull design on his shirt and, as far as Kajiko could tell, even wearing the same simple necklace as she.

The approaching boy tensed, readying his stance for a fight. "What are you goin' on about?" he asked, in a voice that had been hinted around the edges of the Shadow's, but hadn't come into full human form until now. "You ain't my true inner—"And then he started back in a spectacular double take, shock etching its way across his face. "Wh-what? H-hey! You! You can't be here! What… what the hell are you playing at?"

"Well, excuse _me_ for existing," responded Kajiko. His angry tone hurt and affronted her. "Jeez… what's your damn _problem?_" In her head she added, _Is it that I'm a girl? Is that it?_

"_You're_ my damn problem!" the boy insisted, rushing towards her in a frantic sort of rage. "Don't be an idiot! Get outta here, now!"

"Yeah, like I wasn't trying to!" Kajiko said, infuriated. Why was this place filled with people who sounded, looked, or even acted like her, but not one of them felt inclined to show her any sort of respect? "Why does everyone think I _want _to be here? I never wanted to… oh… oh no… oh f— that's bad, isn't it…?"

_'Idiot' is right_, she told herself angrily. Because she'd been completely dense again, too dense to just listen for a damn moment, too reactive and boneheaded to realize when she was being warned. She'd stupidly turned her back on the first boy, and now, facing him again, she saw that his dark aura was expanding into a column. Behind him, several black, oily shapes were leaking out of the woodwork, growing painted masks for faces, putting out arms and clawing their way across the floor to where Kajiko stood.

She felt her face drain of blood, but she held her ground and started to pick up her fists. If they wanted a fight, she'd give them one, all right. But the monsters were freakishly fast. Even before they had fully assumed what nightmarish forms they were ready to take on, the living shadows were lunging for her.

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**Here's a drinking game idea for this story: take a shot (of water, please, or milk, or juice... I don't want a very drunk readership) for every introduction or re-introduction of a character that is actually Kanji Tatsumi in some form or another.**


	3. That's what I'D do

**Author's Note: Please don't pass this story by without reviewing if you've got this far! It doesn't have to be positive, you know, just an acknowledgement that you've taken the time to read the story. Even if you've just wandered in out of the web rain and put your feet up on the paragraphs for a little R&R, don't forget to leave a written tip for your hard-working host. Also, this story is rather experimental, what with the fact that all the main characters are the ****_same person,_**** so I'd appreciate constructive criticism as much as anything else.**

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**#03: That's what I'D do  
**

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The past few days would presumably have been a living hell for Kanji Tatsumi, except he'd been unconscious for a good chunk of it. All he remembered was being alone at his house, and when he tried to prod his memory further in time than that, the images melted into mist. But then, of course, there'd been this god-awful place, and he'd been quite disturbed by what it was seeming to be, but until very recently, he hadn't doubted the notion that he was just having a really uncomfortable dream.

So he'd been vaguely but earnestly throwing himself at whatever situations arose, the way one would in a dream, taking everything at face value and not really thinking too hard about any of it. He'd gotten angry once or twice; there were the voices, for starters, all talking trash about him, and he'd nearly been sick trying to shout over them. And he'd been aware the whole time of another presence, the reason why this whole place existed, its denizen. The damn thing had his voice, too, and it was infuriating to hear it talking, well, the way it did, sounding like him and all.

But then the floor had torn open, as if forced apart from below by a savage pair of unseen hands. He'd scrambled back with a yell and shielded his face from the splinters as the rift in the floor widened, the space filling with pulses of red light. Amid the clouds of steam, a dark blob of a shape had writhed its way out, and had melted away into the walls. There'd been a muffled thump, and the light had vanished, leaving a tall, frightening ring of wrenched-up floorboards.

And even for a dream, that was _really frikkin' weird_.

It had been loud, it had been sudden, and it had shaken Kanji clean out of his sleepy trance. Suddenly he'd realized that what he should really do, and hadn't once thought to try, was start looking for a way out. Maybe it was the fact that, with the hole in the floor, the whole place wasn't quite identical anymore. It was like encountering a landmark in a featureless desert, and finding that if he walked away from it; his mind began to feel that he _would_ be getting somewhere. Setting forth didn't seem like heading down another futile loop anymore.

Not that he was trying to get away from the room where things exploded without warning, he told himself. He wasn't _frightened_ at all of this weird inexplicable shit. Just, you know, kind of done with the place. And that meant he was leaving.

He'd found a flight of stairs and, feeling rather empowered, he'd bounded down them. In dreams, a person could walk by a perfectly good exit without thinking twice, but he wasn't falling for that anymore. Kanji was wide awake; he was sure of that now.

And then he opened a door, stepped into a bent and significantly less steamy hallway, and heard voices. Well, one voice, but it was layered with resonance so that it could have conceivably been many voices, all speaking together. The most distinct of them, though, was Kanji's own.

"_I_ am a Shadow," the clone of himself was saying, a bit indistinctly. "A reflection of the _true_ inner self. But I'm not supposed to be _your _inner self! This is all wrong!"

Wait… did that mean that… But the clone, the Shadow, wasn't talking to Kanji, was it? The Shadow was talking to someone else… So there was someone else here!

This changed everything. It wasn't about Kanji escaping anymore. It was about getting this other person out as soon as possible, before they saw too much of this place and got the wrong idea about— uh, before they got hurt, that is. He barreled around a turn in the hallway and saw that creepy copy of himself, nearly butt naked as usual, talking to either a very girly boy or a girl in very boyish clothing. No, it had to be a girl, because if not, the shadow-person would have been acting a lot more lewd to the new kid. And sure enough, it was in the middle of its absolute favorite subject – how much it _loved_ men.

Bullshit. Like Kanji was going to let it get away with this kind of slander. "What are you goin' on about?" he said angrily to his double, who was looking past the girl and right at Kanji. "You ain't my true inner—"

The girl turned around, and Kanji thought he saw the figure behind her widen his grin. Indigo smoke began to swirl around the other Kanji… Kanji-shaped creature… he wasn't sure what to call it, exactly… and the darkness started to pool into shapes. Horrified, Kanji rushed forward. "Hey! You! You can't be here!" he yelled to the girl. What had she even been doing talking so incautiously to some shadowy monster anyway? "What… what the hell are you playing at?"

The girl's face crumpled with disgust and she clenched her fists. "Excuse me for existing!" she snapped. "Jeez… what's your damn _problem?_"

"_You're_ my damn problem! Don't be an idiot!" He pointed behind her urgently. How was she this thick? "Get outta here, now!"

But she still wasn't getting it. "Yeah, like I wasn't trying to!" the girl retorted, clearly thinking that Kanji was speaking in a more general sense. "Why does everyone think I _want _to be here? I never wanted to…"

Kanji could see the moment that she realized what was really going on. Her eyes had been squinting with furious exasperation; now they went almost comically wide. She was turning, now, recognizing the danger, and the black shapes – three distinct forms at this point could be clearly discerned, from the three flat painted faces – were pooling their amorphous bodies into limbs and claws and weaving about like snakes ready to strike. But the girl wasn't backing down. Did that chick think she could fight them off or something?

"Are you freaking nuts?!" Kanji yelled. He ran forward and caught the girl's wrist, hauling her steps backwards with a sharp tug, just missing the monsters as they dove into the spot where she had been standing. "Do you have some kind of death wish?"

The girl yanked her arm out of his grip sullenly. "No! It just caught me off guard for a second! I would've been fine!"

The black shapes, having missed their target, splashed to the floor and then erupted upwards again. "Stop _doing_ that!" Kanji growled to his lookalike. "Call your freak show off! Just… leave her alone!"

"I'm not controlling them," the thing said, its own voice, Kanji's voice, backed by the whispers of countless others speaking in time. "But you're still too late… Looks like the fog is almost done clearing on this side. Once it's gone, there's just no stopping them… teehee!"

"Them?" the girl repeated. "Who the hell's 'them'?"

"_Sheesh_, honey… you really _are_ slow…" The demon rolled its eyes. "Why, they're Shadows, of course! None of them are _nearly_ as personable as I am, since they're all just echoes of the collective human subconscious… and most humans are all boring, mindless _sheep_…" He covered his mouth in mock distress. "Whoopsies! Looks like I said too much…"

"No way!" Kanji shouted. "You're going to have to explain a lot more than that! Otherwise I'll—"

"Watch it, you moron!" interrupted the girl. She shoved Kanji out of the way of a diving Shadow with her shoulder. "They're coming straight out of the walls!"

"You didn't have to… I saw that one coming a mile away!" Kanji protested. He took a swipe at the mask, which dodged smoothly backwards while the body it was attached to refused to budge. "That's right, back the hell up if you know what's good for you!"

Shadow Kanji seemed riled up with anticipation – unless, for some reason, it was agitation instead. But that wouldn't make any sense, would it? "You don't _really_ think you can fight them like that, do you?" it said. The words were trying to come out as mocking, but they seemed to have passed through a hitch in its throat and turned rather panicked. "How do you expect to turn aside all the petty-minded judgments of the masses when you treat your _own_ _inner_ _self_ the same way? You'redoing this to yourself!"

"So where does all this get _you?_" the girl retorted, trying to keep two encroaching Shadows within her line of sight. "Why the hell should you be happy? If you're a part of him and he dies, then won't you stop existing too?" She brandished a fist at a Shadow that was getting too close for comfort. "Piss off!" she told it.

"There's no way that _thing_ is any part of me!" Kanji insisted. "It… it isn't even a frikkin' human; look at it! You sayin' I'm not human?"

"Would you shut the hell up already?" the girl hissed. "I ain't saying he's _actually_ a part of you… I'm just trying to get him on our side!"

It hadn't occurred to Kanji until now, but there was something about the girl that was strikingly familiar. Too worried about his Shadow's shenanigans, Kanji hadn't focused on the girl's appearance at all, but now he wished he had spared a moment for that. The two of them were facing back to back now, and Kanji couldn't afford to take his eye off the Shadows to sneak a look, but he had a weird suspicion about her. It was the way she spoke, the way she bore herself…

The halo of smoke around Shadow Kanji was deepening. "Why can't you just _accept_ me!" it wailed. "Is that _sooo_ hard? You _know_ I'm you, deep down!"

"I don't _want_ it on my side," said Kanji out of the corner of his mouth. "And just because it looks like a person doesn't mean it you can reason with it! It just said it was the same kind of thing as these blobby monsters. You gonna get them on our side, too?"

"Just admit that I'm you, dammit!" the Shadow boy suddenly snapped, sounding more like its human counterpart than it ever had. Its fists clenched. "Or I'll take you down!"

"Take us down, huh?" said the girl. She snorted. "I wouldn't try it if I were you…"

Shadow Kanji's normal mannerisms returned, and it looked at her disdainfully. "I didn't mean _you,_ honey," it said, rolling its eyes. "I probably won't even bother with you since it won't be a fair fight… why don't you go have a slap fight with your own Shadow if you're so keen? You know, back in your _own_ dimension, where you belong?"

Though he couldn't see her expression, Kanji could tell the girl was fuming. "_What?_ You think I can't take on a punk like you?" she screamed. "Get bent! I'll show you a fair fight!"

The light bulb went off at last. Finally, Kanji risked a look back over his shoulder at his companion. "H-hey…" he said slowly, as a wash of realization spread over him. "Wait a sec—"

The girl charged at Kanji's double, but her path was blocked by the three Shadows that had first attacked her. The closest one surged forwards, and Kanji started to yell out a warning, but he didn't get past the step of filling his lungs with air. Without breaking stride, the girl pulled back a foot and kicked the Shadow squarely in the face. "_Nnf!_" she grunted. The Shadow lurched back, spewing smoke; its mask was half-shattered. As Kanji watched, a chunk of the face detached itself and gloomily slipped down the Shadow's neck.

"Uh. Okay…" Kanji said, dumbstruck. "You _could_ do that…" He blinked. "Cause… cause… well… 's what _I'd_ do…"

He wasn't sure, at this point, if she was another construct of this place, supposedly another facet of himself like what his Shadow claimed to be, or if she was from somewhere else entirely. Still, there wasn't a chance, barring even the gender difference, that two completely separate people who had never met each other in their life could be more alike.

The Shadow that Girl-Kanji had punted was wobbling; then it exploded in a burst of smoke. For a moment Kanji thought this was a victory, but then in the smoke the fragments lashed themselves together into a far more solid form. It had become, out of gelatinous darkness, a giant painted hand that was perched on its fat fingertips. The mask, still badly cracked, stared out from the back of the armless wrist.

"What the hell _is_ that?" Kanji yelped.

Without warning, the hand rushed at the girl and swatted upwards, the blow landing hard on the underside of her jaw and smacking her through the air all the way back to where Kanji was standing. He had to admit he was impressed. That hand had socked her a good one, but the girl version of him didn't cry out in pain when she was struck, nor when she hit the floor. Instead she swiped away a trickle of blood from her nose with the back of her hand and, dizzy, put her fists up and tried to stand, eager for a second round.

"So much for tryin' to make friends with 'em, huh?" Kanji asked the girl, crouching next to her and keeping a wary eye on the Shadows.

The girl blanched at this for some reason. "It came after me!" she insisted. "That was… self-defense! I got every right to… Anyone would've …"

"And… you're gonna go try and beat the crap out of it now," Kanji pointed out. "Self-defense, sure." He aimed a death glare at the hand, which was skipping restlessly in place. "Back off, ya shit!"

The girl pushed herself to her feet stubbornly. "We gotta do _something!_" she insisted. "You think it won't try to attack us again? The best defense is a good offense, right? So let's take it down already!"

There was another round of smoke puffs, and two other Shadows coalesced into restless Hands. They hopped from finger to finger, dancing closer to their targets.

"Uh," said Kanji. He leaned back, throwing out an arm as if to ward the Shadows off. "M-maybe we should…"

The hand with the broken face leaped off the ground and sharply pointed its index finger at them. Kanji wondered for a moment if this was a sign for the other two to attack, and then saw the fingertip glow. He and the girl both shouted, "Watch out!" and then shoved each other out of the way. Light shot from the Hand's fingertip through the spot where they'd been standing and burned a sizzling scar in the far wall.

"Well, then," the girl gasped. "R-right. So. Time to bail?"

"You mean we're gonna _back outta this?_" Kanji asked incredulously.

Girl-Kanji nodded.

"Are you kidding me? That's the—" Kanji glanced back at the Hands, then at his girl double. "That's the _best_ damn idea I've heard all day."

Without much further ado, the two of them fled.

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**Finally, just to assuage any fears you might have of there being only Kanjis in this story (though I personally feel you can never have too many Kanjis), I will let on to the fact that a full genderbent P4 cast will be making an eventual appearance. Look forward to it in a few updates!**


	4. This ain't about you anymore

**Author's Note: The alternate title to this chapter was "And Then There Was A Wacky Chase Scene".**

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**#04: This ain't about you anymore**

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With the gang of Hands hot on their tail, Kanji and his female double pounded around the turn in the hallway, bouncing off the wall like ricocheting pool balls in their haste to get away. "How about this running away thing?" yelled Kanji out of the side of his mouth. "How the hell did I come up with something so smart?"

"What? I thought it was _my_ idea!" the girl pointed out.

Kanji managed to shrug as he sprinted. "You, me, same thing! You look like me, anyway!"

Hearing the patter of the Hands behind them, the girl dashed ahead and punched open a door. "Well so did your Shadow!"

"Well, he didn't think like me, did he?" said Kanji, barreling past her at top speed as she held the door open for him. "He doesn't count!"

"_You can't just leave meeeee!_" they heard Shadow Kanji screech on cue, with the agony of a thousand tormented souls. "_Come baaaack!_"

"No frikkin' chance of that, dude!" Kanji hollered. "This ain't—" He wheezed. "This ain't about you anymore!"

"Less talking," the girl panted as she came up beside Kanji, who had gotten a head start of about half a hallway. "More running!"

"You sure you can keep up?" asked Kanji, a little worried by how flushed with exertion the girl seemed. "You don't look so—"

"Pair of Shadows!" the girl interrupted. "Dead ahead!"

"Damnit!" said Kanji. "What do we do now? They're blocking those doors and… that's the only exit left!"

"Just don't stop running!" insisted the girl. "I'll think of something!"

The Shadows were mere meters away. "What, in two seconds?!" protested Kanji. "_I_ can't think that fas—"

"Stop running!" the girl shouted, in much the same tones as before. "I thought of something!"

Kanji glared at her with exasperation. Way to send a mixed message… The formless Shadows had both sprung up, smoky claws at the ready. "_Are you kid—_"

The girl glanced behind her and then yelled, "_Hit the floor, now!_"

Kanji only obeyed because he'd actually realized in the pinch what Girl-Kanji was up to. The two of them landed hard against the wooden floor as a wave of energy rushed over their heads, singeing the hairs on the back of Kanji's neck. In front of them, the two Shadows reeled under the onslaught.

"They're both down!" Kanji cheered, caught up in the adrenaline rush. "Now's our chance! Let's crush 'em!"

"Wh-wha-_huh?_" spluttered the girl.

"_Let's crush 'em?_" Kanji repeated incredulously. "Come on! Don't be a killjoy!"

"Oh! Right!" The girl bounded to her feet. "Crushing! Count me in on that!"

The two of them rushed at the Shadows, but it immediately it became apparent that neither of them knew just what to do when it came to fighting blobs of liquid darkness. Kanji went for the only part that _wasn't_ liquid darkness, and ended up squashing the mask of one Shadow down into its body with a solid punch and then stamping on the spot as vigorously as he could as the face kept trying to rise out of the doughy mass. The girl, it seemed, was energetically attempting to screw her target's neck around until its head came off.

And then, after one more hard stomp from Kanji and one more sharp twist from the girl, the two Shadows burst into puffs of smoke, which this time assumed no fearsome forms, but simply evaporated without much fuss into the air.

"That was…" The girl heaved for breath. "That was—"

"We've still got those things on our tail!" said Kanji hurriedly. He pointed at the trio of rapidly approaching Hands.

The three Shadows stopped dancing and then, in a kind of chorus, all hopped off the floor and pointed back. Their fingers glowed.

"Well, shit," the girl swore, and then Kanji pushed her through the double doors to safety before she could say anything more.

The Hands seemed to realize that they weren't getting good luck with pointing and zapping. They dropped back to their fingertips and galloped towards Kanji. He shoved the doors open and dove into the room; just in time, too – the door swung shut behind him and smacked into the lead Hand, sending it toppling back into a tangle with its fellows.

"You okay?" Kanji asked the girl as soon as he was through. "The hell are you standing around for? Get running!"

Girl-Kanji was looking around him at the windows. "They're all going…" she said in disbelief. "They're not trying to come in after us."

"What? They're _not?_" asked Kanji, wheeling around. "Why aren't they?" He tried to open the doors by the handle. "The heck…? Looks like these things grew a lock or something just now! They're not budging." He let out a long, relieved breath. "Lucky break for us, right?"

"Could be bad, though… we might be trapped too…" The corners of the girl's mouth started to creep up. "But hey, I mean… that was… that was… What _was_ that?"

"_That_ was frikkin' amazing, is what!" Kanji enthused, finding the sense of triumph to be quite infectious. "We _showed_ 'em! I guess even when I back down, I still kick ass."

Girl-Kanji cricked her neck back. "I'd say probably the manliest escape in the history of ever," she grinned.

"Hells yeah!" agreed Kanji. "And hey.. wow… You too… You were like a freaking tank out there, and you ain't even a guy… nice work on that Shadow!"

At this, the girl looked a bit peeved. "Hey… What are you tryin' to say? Girls can't be manly?"

"No, I didn't—! Well, I mean…" It should have been a contradiction, but was it? Best not to push the topic. "I don't know about that, but… That's not what I—" Kanji winced. "Forget it. All I'm saying is… you're one hell of a fighter."

"Th-thanks," stuttered Girl-Kanji. "I mean… Yeah, 's cool. Uh. You too."

The two of them both took a second to lean against the wall and recover. They'd stumbled upon a room that was far larger than all the ones Kanji had encountered previously. The bath in the center was still raised off the ground, but for a bath it was pretty vast, going on pool-sized. The ceiling was held up by thick and massive wooden beams. Kanji could see it clearly now; there was hardly a shred of fog left.

"So you figure the Hands can't get at us in here?" The girl bent over and braced her hands on her knees, still trying to catch her breath.

Kanji shook his head a little reluctantly. "Nah. I mean, you'd expect things that come out of walls could go through walls, too, but… maybe they can't get through now that they're hands? I dunno. Are they stuck as hands or can they turn back into those goo monsters whenever they like?"

"Huh. I didn't think of that," the girl said. "Props to you, I guess." She considered the idea. "We can't really fight these things if we don't know anything about 'em."

"But _you_ thought of ducking the shot so it would hit the other Shadows," Kanji countered. "You saved our butts with that."

The girl nodded. "These Shadows fall for that one a lot. I used it on another one back in the… the place I was in before I fell into this bathhouse. And…" She studied her shoes glumly. "I gotta use moves like that in most of my fights. 'Cause when they're bigger'n you, you use their strength against them, knock 'em into each other. But I wish I could just punch 'em straight up every time. No dodging around, no fancy dancing." After a long look at Kanji, she muttered, "Bet you never had that problem."

"You get into fights a lot?" Kanji asked, confused.

"Well, do _you?_" the girl responded simply. "'Cause if you do, I probably do too."

Kanji's forehead wrinkled a bit. "You really think you're some alternate reality version of me?" he finally asked. "Who's a girl?"

"Well, I guess I really think _you're_ some alternate reality version of _me _who's a _boy_," the girl said. "And that's kinda the same thing, huh?"

"But why the hell should you be getting into all these fights if you're a—"

Girl-Kanji scowled. "I got reasons!" She crossed her arms. "I don't even go looking for fights most of the time! It's just that…" But she didn't really know what it just was, or she didn't want to say. Her sentence trailed off uncomfortably.

"So, uh…" Kanji knew he wasn't very good at talking to girls. But this wasn't 'talking to girls' in the usual sense – she was him, wasn't she? She was Girl-Kanji. She probably knew half the shit that Kanji tried to hide just because it applied to her as well. But only half, he thought to himself. The other half was kind of related to the one area in which she and Kanji differed, after all. "So, uh, what's your name? 'Cause I really gotta stop calling you 'Girl-Me' in my head."

The girl chuckled. "I probably would have been calling you 'Boy-Me', too, except that Shadow guy already said your name was Kanji… I'm Kajiko Tatsumi."

Kanji awkwardly clasped the proffered hand. "Kajiko. Neat. Nice to meet you." He folded his arms, unintentionally mimicking her. "So, uh… where you from?"

"Inaba, of course," she said immediately. "Lived there all my life."

"Oh… that's right…" Kanji still couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea. "But you're from… another Inaba?"

Kajiko nodded very hesitantly. "Another… 'dimension' is what that Shadow kid was saying. I guess this place…" She waved her hand in the air. "I mean this place is pretty damn supernatural and all, so maybe my world and your world are separate in real life but in here things work differently and the two worlds could just…" She gestured with vague concentration, pressing her palms against each other and lacing her fingers. "Just sort of… weave together? Like warp and weft." Then she flushed. "Uh, sorry, that was cloth-speak. My family owns a textile shop and I pick this stuff up. Warp and weft are the two directions that the threads—"

"Yeah, I know what it is, okay?" Kanji interrupted. He frowned, tried to make it sound like this knowledge had just casually seeped into his mind without his permission. "My folks own a textile shop too. It figures, since we're, like, alternate copies, right?"

Kajiko sucked in a hiss of breath through her teeth. "Hush up a sec! Was that…?"

All other thoughts vanished from Kanji's head. "What? You heard somethin'?"

Both of them hurried closer to the center of the room, instinctively assuming their back-to-back battle formation. "Like little feet running about," Kajiko said. "And there's no way in hell this place's got mice, right? It's gotta be…" She snorted. "Well, whatever it is, I'm ready to kick its sorry ass!"

"Right there with you on that!" Kanji cracked his knuckles. "So don't drop your guard or nothin'. We don't know where it's coming from." He could hear it too, now. It did seem to be, as far as he could tell, the pattering of bare footsteps.

"Oh, _no_," he heard Kajiko growl after a moment. "Oh, _shit _no."

Kanji turned, squinted past the girl's shoulder, and then rubbed his eyes. "What the hell is _that?_" he said. "Why do all these Shadows have to look so frikkin' _creepy?_"

Wobbling out of the corner of the room on three dark legs was what appeared to be, for all accounts and purposes, a table, the kind you'd fold out in a hurry when you wanted to sell trinkets or pass out flyers in a fair. It had a simply patterned overhanging cover that bore the familiar expressionless mask, and it was swiftly juggling a handful of items in the space above it.

"Argh! How did it _find_ me?" Kajiko raged. She took a swipe in the air with her first. "Get lost or I'll… I'll reupholster your face! Scram!"

That was an oddly specific reaction to what, at least from Kanji's perspective, was just another monster. He stepped around Kajiko and took a few strides closer to the table. "You sayin' you've met this thing before?"

"Yeah, and last time it tried to shove its knife into me so I'd want to stay the hell back!" Kajiko said warningly. "It throws that thing wicked fast."

"_Knife?_" asked Kanji. "What are you blabbering about? It hasn't got a knife." He tried to focus on the spinning objects one at a time. "There's a hammer'n a round thing'n a cup and I don't know what the hell that last one—"

"Is that a _leg?_" interrupted Kajiko, with disturbed fascination. "It's carrying around its own _leg? _How'd it think of that?" Addressing the Shadow again, she yelled, "Back off, I'm warning ya! You're outnumbered, and we can _so_ kill things like you, right, Kanji?"

"R-right!" Kanji blustered. "Tch… 'course we can! It's easy! So why's it carrying a… that looks more like a hand to me, actually, but—"

"That's its _missing_ leg," the girl explained. "What, did you think it was _supposed_ to have three? I chopped that off last time with its own knife." She puffed her chest up like a peacock. "I gotta say, it was pretty badass." The she frowned. "I guess it can only hold four things up in the air at a time but… if it's so smart, why the heck didn't it drop that stupid cup or something, and keep the weapon?"

Kanji threw his arms out, sending his jacket-cape billowing, and leaned towards the table, in the primal technique of trying to appear bigger for the purpose of intimidation. "Scram!" he yelled. "You heard me! Get lost!"

The table jumped, and as it tried to scuttle away, its back two legs buckled and folded underneath its board. In this new position, with the tail of its cloth spread out behind it, the Shadow looked like a very ugly three-legged dog sitting on its haunches.

"What the…? 'S not even going to attack us?" said Kanji incredulously. He had been planning to run up and kick the thing, but now, with this docile behavior from it, he couldn't find the heart to go through with the plan.

As his side, Kajiko appeared to be battling through a terrible dilemma. "Isn't it… kinda cute?" she murmured.

Kanji could have sworn he saw the table shrink ever so slightly in size. And had it been this bowlegged before? "Cute?" He found himself going crimson from second-hand embarrassment. "Didn't it try'n kill you?"

"Yeah …'s pretty spunky," the girl said. The corners of her blue-gray eyes were just the tiniest bit crinkled with wry affection. "Musta been following me around this whole time. That's one persistent little shit right there."

"Uh…" Kanji really didn't know where to start responding to this, because if he actually said what was on his mind, he'd have to admit that he agreed with her, just a little. "Whatever, man, just… I don't wanna have that thing smacking me with its hammer when my back's turned, all right?"

"You think it could do much with that twig?" Kajiko snorted. She rubbed behind her ear and then deliberated. "I'm not saying it's not dangerous… prob'ly followed me to get back for what I did to it, but, you know, bein' an object of vengeance, that's still kind of flattering. It was either stupid enough or hell-bent enough to jump through a portal after me…"

This rung a clear bell in Kanji's memory. "Wait … so that big hole that opened up in the floor upstairs, that was what dumped you here?"

"_Coulda_ been," Kajiko answered cagily. "_Mighta_ been… Unless there was more than one portal that opened up from that prison place to your weird-ass bathhouse…"

"Hey!" said Kanji, pulling himself up fiercely. "This ain't _my_ weird-ass bathhouse! I got chucked in here, same as you!"

The girl didn't seem to respond well to being contradicted. She scoffed, "Yeah, but I'm not _supposed_ to be here. I'm supposed to be in that other place, getting an earload of shit about what a shocking disgrace to society I am. This place was made for _you_."

"_Made_ for me?" demanded Kanji, heating up with anger. If his anger hadn't been sparked, he might have wanted to ask just what the girl's own 'place' had been like, but the idea that this building was connected to him brought up a lot of unpleasant ideas. "Just how d'you figure that?"

"I don't know, but it's all trying to mess with your brain, isn't it? So this bathhouse has gotta have something to do with you and not me…"

"Well it _doesn't!_" Kanji growled. He spat on the floor with vehement scorn. "They screwed up! Whatever knucklehead made this place has got it all wrong about me!"

The table sat and blankly watched the argument develop. The only sign that it could understand came from the way the orbits of the objects over its head nervously contracted every time one of the two adolescents made a gesture of anger.

"What if you made this place yourself?" Kajiko went on, determined to keep prodding at the issue – out of sheer pig-headedness, Kanji thought. "What if it all crawled outta your own mind? That would explain why it suits you so—"

"You tryin' to say I _belong_ here?!" Kanji demanded, beside himself with indignation. "You sayin' this 'Rosy Steam Paradise' shit was my idea?"

"How the hell should I know?" Kajiko threw up her hands. "Maybe it's just a little suspicious how _bothered _you are by my suggesting that it _is!_"

Kanji might as well have had smoke coming out of his ears. "I ain't in _denial_ about _anything!_" he bawled. "And you can take that notion and stuff it up—"

A bolt of dark lightning flashed down in the middle of the floor and rose petals burst from it like sparks out of a case of defective fireworks that, despite missing the cue for the grand finale, have mulishly decided to give it their all as soon as their fuses got working again, no matter how unfashionably late that might be. A euphoric purr of triumph accompanied these theatrics, and a voice dripping with affectation sang out, "_Caught you at last…_"

With a sense of dread, the boy and the girl both stopped mid-shout and tipped their heads towards the commotion. Out of the whirlwind of shadow, Shadow Kanji exploded into the room, hovering over the waters of the large central bath. "_My, MY!_" it gasped, heaving in air as if it had been holding its breath. "It took you both long enough to remember me! Well now I'm here, and this time, you're _not getting away so easily!_"

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**Please don't forget to leave a review! I won't lie, it always makes my day to hear from my tiny readership. It's nice to know that something I made was able to entertain someone. After all, any story I write isn't really made for me; it's made for all of you to read and enjoy, so I hope you're doing just that! **


	5. It can't be helped

**Author's Note: I figured I've let things develop long enough, so... here's a treat for you. Or, I hope it's a treat, anyway. Little change of pace and setting to establish conflict and such.**

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**#05: It can't be helped**

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"_… as a result, a thick fog is expected to form in the Inaba region later tonight…_"

Yue Narukami sat back against the sofa in her room and put her hands over her eyes, remembering the faint crackle that had come when the television downstairs was switched off right after she'd heard the news. It had sounded like a flat-lining heart monitor.

She hadn't offered an explanation to her younger cousin at dinner as to why a mere weather forecast bothered her so much. But then, she was too weary to explain anything at the moment. And now she sat in front of her own TV monitor, seeing in the dark reflection the ghosts of the blurry yellow images that had been appearing without fail on rainy midnights.

_If you really think I'm worth saving, you're going to have to prove it._ That was what Shadow Kajiko had said every night for the past few days, staring accusingly into the camera like she could see the frozen Yue helplessly watching on the other side, while the water drops drummed against the window pane, like drowning moths hoping to dry their wings on a false sun, while time dripped out of the rain gutters. _You still haven't saved me yet_, the Shadow's eyes said. _And you're never going to._ In the end, it had been right.

No wonder this Shadow had been one of the most uncomfortable to face for all of them. It knew just what to say to dredge up the worst in you, bring out all the dirty buried desires that lusted for anarchy and rebellion and corruption.

In a numb trance, Yue stood and brushed back the curtains. Haze hit her vision like chloroform – the fog was rolling in, swamping the streets, smothering all sound in a quiet shroud of gloom.

There was a buzz against her leg and a muffled ringtone. Yue clamped a hand over her pocket. Deep down, she didn't even want to answer, but it felt like she had no choice.

"_Hey, uh… partner…?_" She heard the phone shift on the other end of the line. "_It's Yoshiko. So… you saw about the forecast, huh?_"

"Yeah. I saw." With the hand not holding the phone, Yue plucked a half-folded paper crane from her desk and examined it before slowly crumpled the bird in her fingers.

"_I don't know if I can go to sleep tonight,_" Yoshiko murmured. "_Knowing that any second now they'll find a—_" She broke off. "_It's so awful…_"

Yue let the broken bird fall out of her fist to the floor. "I know. It can't be helped."

"_'Can't be helped'? What's gotten into you?_" Yoshiko sounded on the verge of tears. "_It shouldn't have ended like this, Narukami, we're supposed to be rescuing people!_"

"We gave it our all," Yue said hollowly. "That's the best we can do."

"_No… you and the guys, you gave it your all._" Yoshiko sighed heavily. "_This is my fault. I'm the one who let you down._ _I'm the one who chickened out on warning Kajiko straight up, remember? If I hadn't been making up all those crazy theories about... well, you know… she might not have even ended up in the TV in the first place!_"

Yue wanted to protest, to dispel this notion from Yoshiko's head, but couldn't find the words. "I… Yoshiko…"

"_I bet I know what my Shadow would be saying if she was around,_" said Yoshiko. "_She'd say that I let this happen to Kajiko because of some stupid notion that she might have been involved with… what happened to Senpai. And when I saw what her Shadow was like I just let that convince me I was right… You should have kicked me off the team then and there._"

Yue said nothing, and Yoshiko took this as silent assent.

"_I get it… You didn't want to make me look bad in front of the others by calling me out on it,_" said Yoshiko glumly. "_A good leader's got to keep morale up, right?_"

It hurt to hear Yoshiko put it like that… like the lot of them were teammates, comrades-at-arms, anything other than a bunch of nosy teens looking for kicks. "Forget it, Yoshiko," muttered Yue. "I'm not a good leader. I'm not any kind of leader at all."

She closed the phone on Yoshiko's tinny words of protest, let her hand drop, let the cell phone slip through her fingers and clatter to the floor. Let her friend believe what she wanted about whose fault it was. They all knew the truth.

Yue was a fake. It made sense now, why she hadn't been strong enough to save Kajiko, why her powers had failed her. She hadn't earned her Persona the way the others had; in fact, she'd been lying to herself this whole time, pretending that they could really make a difference with this charade, that they were all going to be heroes at the end of the day. It was no wonder that her Arcana, her super-special wild-card Arcana of the chosen one, was that of the 'Fool'.

At her feet, the phone began to ring again. Wanting to ignore it but not wanting to wake up her sleeping cousin, Yue knelt down and picked up the cell so she could silence the calls, maybe turn it off entirely. Expecting it to be Yoshiko again, she glanced at the caller ID. Then, after staring at the name, she opened the phone and put it to her ear.

"_Yo! Yue-chan!_" the voice said. "_It's me, Chiyuu! Boy, am I glad you gave me your number all that time ago! So… is your aunt around?_"

"Sorry, she's out," answered Yue, a little confused. "You want to talk to her?"

"_No, what I meant was… D'you think you could sneak out and go someplace? Like, without getting caught?_"

"I'm flattered but… I don't know if this is the time," Yue told the boy weakly. "It's a little late for an evening out." She didn't add that the mood would be rather dampened by knowing that somewhere out there, a girl was being murdered by her own inner thoughts made monstrously manifest.

"_No, no, I… that's not what this is about!_" Chiyuu clarified frantically. "_I wouldn't do something like that, not _tonight!_ Sheesh! Just what kind of jerk d'you take me for?_"

"Oh… I don't really follow you, then," admitted Yue. "I'm sorry, what did you want?"

"_Well, what do you _think_, you dope? You heard the forecast, right? It's already starting to get foggy! We don't have much time left!_" Chiyuu began to earnestly babble out a plan. "_I was just thinking, couldn't Yoshiko get us into Junes even though it's closed? Her family does run the place; she's _got_ to be able to get her hands on the key. And don't worry, I've got tons of energy drinks for everyone so we stay awake for this! Just tell me how soon you can be there so we can get inside that TV before it's too late!_"

Yue shut her eyes and shook her head. "Chiyuu… It's already too late."

"_Whaaat?_" exclaimed the boy. "_You mean they already found a body?_"

"No, I haven't heard anything yet, but—"

"_Then we still have a chance! Come on, Narukami, someone's life is on the line here! We can't give up until—_"

"Until one of us gets killed, too?" Yue finished. "We nearly didn't make out it last time, and we're in worse shape now than we were going in then."

"_Well, I'm going in anyway!_" Chiyuu said, shrill and severe. "_I didn't think you'd punk out so easily, but I guess I was wrong about you! You know what? I'm calling up Yoshiko right now and asking her for the key!_"

"No… Chiyuu, please…" Yue clutched the phone to her ear. "Don't do this. You'll never make it out alive. I don't want to lose… any of you."

She thought she could hear a cry of anger, which was followed by the distorted thump of a fist striking wood. Then Chiyuu was back, his breath coming in heavily. "_I know…_" he muttered. "_I just can't stand the idea of sitting back and letting someone die! It's not fair! But if I go in on my own… that's just as bad, isn't it? I'm letting myself get killed. And then if I start pulling the rest of you into it…_"

"Promise you won't go in," said Yue in a very distant sort of way. "You have to do that for me."

"_I… ugh… fine, I promise I won't go in tonight without you. You're the boss, after all. I trust you._" Desperately, Chiyuu added, "_B-but… if you change your mind about going in together, just say the word! Call me, okay?_" Then, after some fumbling, the phone went dead.

Immediately afterwards, it began to ring again. Someone must have been waiting on hold while Yue spoke to Chiyuu. "_Is… is this Yue Narukami?_" asked a tentative male voice. "_Do I have the right number?_"

Yue sighed. "Yukihiro… you don't need to check every time. It's still my number."

"_I-I know, it's just…_" The boy gave a nervous, breathless laugh. "_Well, I _did_ call the wrong number this one time. Isn't that silly?_"

"Yes," agreed Yue quietly. "It's very silly… What's this about?"

Yukihiro's voice became more sad and serious. "_I just wanted to see how you were holding up,_" he said. "_I heard the weather report on TV… Does it mean that it's too late to save Kaji-chan?_"

Again, Yue found herself tongue-tied. She managed a brief syllable of acknowledgement.

"_It's pretty upsetting, isn't it?_" Yukihiro said glumly. "_She used to be such a nice girl… But you know, thinking about it… made me want to thank you. For saving me. I know it's not much good to hear right now but if it wasn't for you, the same thing that's going to happen to Kajiko would have happened to me._"

He was quiet for a few seconds, and Yue didn't use the chance to speak.

"_Maybe it was fated to be like this_," Yukihiro's sad voice went on. "_I'm not so sure we can save everyone anymore… but that doesn't mean we should give up on the next time! I know you really did try your hardest to save Kaji-chan, just like you tried your hardest to rescue me. And since we know how to predict who will be targeted, we're still the best hope the killer's victims have got._"

"I'm a little tired right now," Yue interrupted, as the skin on her face prickled with the icy needles of anxiety. "It was nice talking to you, Yuki-kun. Thanks for calling; I'll see you at school." Swiftly she closed the phone, turned it all the way off, and then stuffed it in her school bag. Only after all this was done did she slowly let out the breath of air she'd been holding.

The time on the wall clock told her it was after ten. Perhaps something would still appear on the Midnight Channel; Yue didn't want to know what it would be. She draped her gray jacket over the screen, just in case, and, fumbling, turned off the light.

* * *

**So I mean I guess the treat was a sad, contemplative picture of despair but the point was here come the rest of the genderbends! Do let me know what you think of them.**


	6. Caught you at last

**Author's Note: I just wanted to drop a shoutout to an author whose work I've been enjoying recently. Ari Moriarty's ****_Dreamgirl_**** is quite an excellent longfic about... well, a lot of things, actually, but anyway I've been really impressed by how the story expands on the Persona universe and adds new depth to it and it's really worth checking out.**

**Now... I seem to remember we were left with a little cliffhanger in the chapter before last... let's get back to that, shall we?** **Also, the genderbends might not be OCs, but there is one OC in this story - and you've met them already. Enjoy!**

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**#06: Caught you at last**

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"Dammit, Kanji, you _ass!_" Kajiko hissed, and she stamped her foot with frustration. "You couldn't have kept your mouth shut? Now he's found us!"

"You sayin' _I _did this?" Kanji couldn't believe how intolerably stupid his girl self was being. "It's your own fault for putting all this bullshit back in my head!"

Next to them, the Laughing Table sprang to its feet, bristling with fear like a startled alley cat and wobbling on its unbalanced limbs. Within its collection of objects, whose orbits were fraying into nervy chaos, the cup struck against the disk and drew a spray of sparks.

The newly materialized Shadow Kanji pouted and struck a pose."It feels like _ages_ I've been searching… It really took you that long to think me up again? Did I not make enough of an _imprrressssionn_ on you?"

"No, you were pretty damn memorable," muttered Kajiko. "And that really blows, because I'm really gonna want to forget most of—_Ack!_" She gagged and then stuttered out a stream of explosively punctuated profanity.

"Oh, what _naughty_ language—" Shadow Kanji began to say, but then it actually looked down at what had prompted this, and its expression contorted into an indecisive blend of emotions. It was apparently unsure whether to drop its jaw in disbelief, burst out laughing, or simply cringe at the sight. Spooked by the arrival of Kanji's yellow-eyed and mostly naked double, the three-legged Laughing Table had sprung straight off the floor, folded like a school desk in midair, and landed squarely in Kajiko's arms.

"What the heck is _with _that thing?" Kanji yelped, his anger at the girl easily switching targets. "Hey, uh, Kaji-kun! You okay? You need any help with—?"

"No, no," Kajiko choked out, trying to force the table away, but succeeding only in stretching its legs out like black putty or gooey bungee cords. It had clamped its fingers tightly on her shoulders. "I'm just fine! No need to—Argh!"

"It's not trying to strangle you?" Kanji asked worriedly.

"Nah, it's just being all skittish and shit…" The words came out a little muffled. At this point, the table was perched on her shoulders, so Kajiko was practically wearing it as a form of boxy headgear. Its masked tablecloth, in an oddly fitting manner, was draped entirely over the girl's face and its sticky black knees were knocking with fright.

"How the hell did this one monster get to be so… so frikkin' friendly?" Kanji wondered aloud. "What gives?"

"Obviously one of you did this to it," Shadow Kanji said in bored tones, examining its fingernails. "Something had to have bestowed it with that… _appallingly_ primitive… sense of self that it's displaying. But you'll never escape other Shadows so easily. This one might have been born from the more innocent stock but really, the rest of them are quite malicious."

"Right, like _you_," grumbled Kanji. "We noticed."

"You _wound_ me, Kanji!" the Shadow boy exclaimed. "I'm only trying to free your inner passion and lust for—"

"Yeah, whatever," said Kanji, not wanting to hear the rest of this. To Kajiko he called, "Uh…'s long as it ain't killing you I don't mind it, I guess…"

Shadow Kanji gasped and blazed. "You're all so… so _heartless_!" it sniffed loudly. "You'll accept that freakish mutt of a Shadow but not _me_?"

"_What_ did you just say?" Kajiko snapped. Her voice buzzed and thrummed as it passed through the thin mouth-slit in the Shadow's mask. She wrenched the Laughing Table off her head and placed it on her firmly on her shoulder, where it perched like a parrot. "Just what have you got against Table, ya punk?" She glowered at Shadow Kanji. "Is it 'cause Table's a _girl?_"

Shadow Kanji stared at Kajiko. "You're not serious," it said flatly.

"I'm not _joking!_" yelled the girl. "Say any more shit about Table-chan and I'll twist your head around!"

"Table-_chan_?! How can you tell that thing's a girl?" asked Kanji, caught up a bit with speculation. "Does it even _have_ a gender?"

"Nah, probably not…" The girl rolled her eyes. "Figured since your Shadow doesn't seem to like her very much, we might as well call her a girl."

This seemed to anger the Shadow further. "You're making _fun_ of me," it accused them. "Just like everyone else does!" It rounded on Kanji. "And I just _loathe_ it when people make fun of you, isn't that right?"

Kanji shrugged. "So? Who wouldn't?" he said. "But if they cross a line, I don't let them get any more crap by me, you hear? No one messes with Kanji Tatsumi!"

"You keep on telling yourself that," said the Shadow smugly, "But does it really make you feel all that better? All you do is bury your _true_ feelings and push people away…" It started laughing, as if realizing the punchline to an absurd joke. "And you _honestly_ pretend to think that you _like_ it that way!"

"_Pretend?_" Kanji repeated. "I'm not hiding anything!"

"Oh, but you _aaareee_," Shadow Kanji sang. "You don't think anyone really falls for that tough-guy act? It's so obvious that you're trying too hard to cover _me_ up! Like you don't need anyone's approval for anything, when really you can't _stand_ to be around people because you're afraid of their _dis_approval! You don't want them around to remind you how _normal_ you're _not!_"

"Who says I'm not normal?" shouted Kanji. "And that's all bullshit! I'm not afraid of anyone's opinion of me!" He looked down in bitter disgust. "It just… ain't right for a man to let that kinda thing get to him."

Shadow Kanji was descending from its pillar of steam. It balanced delicately on the lip of the bath as the water roiled behind it. "But it _does_ get to you," it said, raking its yellow eyes over its human counterpart. "And you're… just… _sick_ _of_ _it!_" With the serpent's seductive whisper it said, "That's why I'm you and you're me… Because you're tired of hiding the _real_ Kanji from everyone, which means I'm here to expose your – _my_ – true self to _everyone_ watching!"

"_Wh_-_what_?!" Kanji stammered, dumbstruck. He gave a strangled cry of fury, and combed his gaze over the ceiling. "You're sayin'… you're sayin' people are _watching this? _How the hell are they—"

"Oh they just _love_ to tune in on a rainy night," said Shadow Kanji. "I wouldn't want the viewers to be disappointed… And it's really what you want, after all! Think of it as a burden lifted off your chest."

"How are people watching this?" Kanji snarled. "Are there cameras in this place? Tell me where they are so I can smash them in already!"

"Look at you…" smirked the Shadow. "Pretending to be so _mortified_ by the idea of having your inner desires broadcast to the world when what you _really_ want all along is to just be rid of their pesky little ideas about _gender_ and _manhood_. And what better place to fully embrace yourself, what better place to _transcend_ gender barriers than _here_?"

"You sure transcended _me_ right into this godawful place," muttered Kajiko. On her shoulder, Table bobbed up and down as if in agreement. "But I ain't so sure _that_ was the gender barrier you were aiming at."

Shadow Kanji pretended not to have heard her. It puckered its lips with false sympathy. "You don't have to worry about those _awful,_ _judgmental_ _girls_, either," it said. "This place is for a man's man only. You'll fit right in!"

"Hell no! I ain't buyin' any of this _man's man_ BS you're trying to sell me!" Kanji snapped to his Shadow. "I got nothing to prove to anybody, and I ain't scared of chicks either! So just cut the crap already! I've had enough of your damn mind games!"

"Puh-_leeze_," Shadow Kanji said, rolling its eyes. "You're the one who's dodging the real issue here, not _me_. I just don't have time to waste when there could be so many _delicious_ young men to romance…"

Kanji went pink and was about to yell a protest, but Kajiko, surprisingly, beat him to it. "Oh, yeah?" she demanded, marching up to the bath's wide, flat edge where Shadow Kanji was perched. "How the hell do you plan to do that?" She spread her arms out and swept over the expanse of the high-ceilinged room. "Where exactly d'you think you're gonna find all these pretty naked men you keep going on about? I guess you didn't notice before 'cause of all that fog, but this place is pretty damn empty. _You're_ the only one who actually wants to be here!"

"You think I don't _know that?!_" Shadow Kanji shrieked. Startled, Kajiko shied back, dislodging the surprised Table, who fell onto the carpet and hid behind her legs. After a brief delay, the table's quartet of items dropped out of the air and bounced off its counter. The Shadow boy stamped his foot. "_Dammit, of course it's empty! You think ANYONE really wants to be around me?_" It pointed an accusing finger at Kanji. "_And it's all YOUR fault! If you just made up your damn mind about who you were, you wouldn't have to push everyone away because you're too scared they'll decide all that for you!_"

"He's actually… kind of got a point," Kajiko slowly admitted, as, beside her, Table scrambled to retrieve its items. "In a sort of messed-up way, but..."

Kanji, with a loud rustle of his jacket-cape, stomped up and readied himself for a fight. "No freaking _way_ he does!" he shouted, and then faced his Shadow. "I know perfectly well who I am, and _it ain't you!_"

Shadow Kanji began to laugh in a very forced way, rising into the air once more as black fire and steam and rose petals swirled around it, forming a huge cloud that obscured it entirely. "_Finally! I've been waiting _forever_ to hear you say that out loud,_" it gloated from within the vortex of darkness. "_Because I'm _sooo_ tired of being locked away in your mind, Kanji! I want to come out and you're in! My! WAY!_" The Shadow inhaled sharply, like someone trying to remain calm while their emotions raged out of control. "_But not for long… Didn't one of you ask once what happens to a Shadow when its source dies? I guess we'll find out…_"

A twinge of horror crept along Kanji's skin. Despite everything, he hadn't really believed that Shadow Kanji posed an actual threat. It had been the inhuman Shadows that had been attacking them so far, with the exception of that freaky table, and how scary could a naked sissy guy who looked like you really be, anyway?

"What the hell is _with _you?" Kajiko shouted at the ascending Shadow. "You're going to kill us because you're _lonely?_ Cause if we're dead, you got _nobody_."

The Shadow paused its ascent in mid-air, a full three meters above them. The twists of smoke uncurled and revealed Shadow Kanji's shocked expression. The aura around it was peppered with squares of static. "_Wh-what did you…?_"

"You _deaf_ or something?" complained Kajiko. "I _said_, are you seriously going to kill us because you're lonely!"

"_L-lonely?_" Shadow Kanji stuttered. "_Is that what I—_"

Because now Shadow Kanji was wobbling in midair, trying to keep its balance. The swatches of noise that had appeared had to be a sign that it was weakening. Kanji felt that this was his turn to think and act quickly. A man had to take matters into his own hands, right?

"Yo, Kaji-kun?" he said. "Can I borrow the Table for a sec?"

"What're you gonna—?" Kajiko started to ask, but Kanji didn't wait for her to finish before he scooped up the piece of living furniture, folded its legs in, and flung it with all his might at his Shadow. The Table rebounded off of Shadow Kanji's forehead, bounced once on the lip of the bath, and then skittered away along the floor, its cloth trailing behind it like the tail of a red checkered comet.

Kanji's dazed Shadow succumbed at last to gravity and toppled out of the air, striking the water with an ignominious splash.

"Is… is that it, then?" Kanji said after a pause. "Did we—?"

The waves had just begun to settle when the water roiled up again. Shadow Kanji emerged and heaved for air. "Did you _k-kill_ me?" the Shadow finished for him bitterly. Its teeth were chattering, and when it spoke, its voice was almost fully human. "Don't be stupid… Shit, th-that's _c-cold_. How did the bath g-get so _c-cold?!_"

Both Kanji and Kajiko snorted a little, mostly at how the Shadow had been rendered so bedraggled and harmless by something so simple and mundane.

The boy draped himself limply over the side and spat out a bit of blood. "Having fun beating your poor little other self up?" he pouted. "You're just a couple of _bullies_…" His – no, _its_, because Kanji wasn't going to let the normal voice fool him – _its_ yellow gaze zeroed in on Kajiko, whose expression had changed from one of amusement to one of shock. "L-let's all throw furniture at the queer, huh?"

"What? N-no!" the girl protested, turning red. "It's not the same!"

Kanji noticed her distress and wondered at it. "Right! It ain't the same thing at all!" he snapped, deciding to stick up for his girl self anyway. "You attacked us first, ya moron! Said you were going to kill us! Don't go looking for sympathy!"

"You attacked me… long before… I even had a _face_…" The Shadow coughed, and water dribbled from the corner of its mouth. "I'm just paying you back for what you_ did to me!_"

"The hell are you goin' on about? I didn't do anything to you!" Kanji told it angrily. "And neither did she! So lay off!" He grabbed Kajiko's arm. "Let's just… get out of here while we can, okay?"

Kajiko struggled against these urgings to retreat. "And I'm not a bully!" she said. "You got that? I stick up for myself, a-and for other people! That's what it's about! Nothin' wrong with it!"

Chuckling, the Shadow pushed its upper body out of the water and loomed over the girl, its pale eyes bright and leering even as the rest of its face filled with darkness. "Well, would you _look_ at that," it hissed, tightening its grip on the rim of the bath until its knuckles were white. "What a _beast_ of a Shadow you must have, darling… I can read all that repressed _passion_ and _tension_ on your face like it was an open book…"

"Yeah, well, I don't read books," Kanji said flatly, breaking the spell. "… you still want to say you're me?"

The Shadow looked very put out for a moment. It hauled itself up out of the water and swung its legs over the side of the bath, seating itself on the ledge. Thankfully, its towel had survived the dunking. "Oh… tut! Always so _literal_!" it said. "Fine. I admit it. Maybe that was a poor analogy. But we both know you're not quite as thick-headed as you seem."

"You sayin' I'm… smart?" Kanji asked, confused. His eyes narrowed. "Or are you sayin' that I act stupid?" He put up a fist. "Well? Which is it?"

"Uh. Both, I think," said Kajiko. "But…"

"Ugh! _Why_ is it so frosty in here?" Kanji's Shadow whimpered and clutched his bare shoulders, shivering. "It's _supposed_ to be a sauna! Th-this is why I don't let g— why I don't let _unappreciative_ people in here!" He seemed to contract into himself, instinctively trying to cover up despite his previously flippant disregard for modesty. "They _completely _ruin the, the sensual atmosphere! W-with their… their damn… their damn _coldness!_" He… no, _it, IT! _What was wrong with Kanji?... _It_ sneezed and then glared daggers at Kajiko. "This is all your doing, isn't it? Y-you just had to drag your stupid frikkin' Shadow world with you wherever you go!"

"I'm… bringing it with me?" Kajiko asked blankly. "I didn't know…"

At this point, Kanji had no idea what to say or do… everything was getting to be so confusing, and it was perhaps even more discomforting to see his Shadow acting more or less like himself than like a complete stranger. Kajiko seemed to be just as lost, but thankfully she was taking the lead here despite that. It was probably easier for Kajiko, since the Shadow had never claimed to be _her_.

"I guess it did get weirdly chilly in here," the girl gruffly admitted. "But look, I didn't mean to…" Kajiko untied her school jacket from around her waist and took a cautious step forwards. "You can have it, okay? You'll… uh… you'll catch a cold or something if you go around wet and naked like this." Awkwardly, she handed the jacket to Shadow Kanji.

The Shadow took the garment and stared at it. "You're g-giving me…?"

Kajiko let out an embarrassed huff of air. "Just… put the damn thing on already!" she grumbled. "Before I change my mind!"

Shadow Kanji balled the jacket up and threw it back right into Kajiko's face. "I don't _want it!_" he exclaimed petulantly. "What I _want_ is for you to go back to your own world and _stay there!_ Is that t-too much to ask? Just leave me alone!" And with that, the soggy Shadow flounced away.

"You could have at least _thanked_ her, you asshole!" Kanji yelled after the boy. "Dammit, what is _with_ him?"

The door handle rattled for a bit as Shadow Kanji discovered the odd lock that had grown on the entrance to the room. Kanji wondered briefly if this would actually stop his Shadow's exit, but then, with a muffled sob, the Shadow boy collapsed into black ooze and puddled away through the floorboards.

Kanji cast his eyes down to focus on patch of wood by his shoes, and then muttered, as if coming to an uncomfortable revelation, "Is that what I'm really… what I really seem like to people?"

"What, _gay?_" asked Kajiko, fiercely ironing out her jacket between her thigh and the heel of one hand. "How should I know?"

"Not th-that!" Kanji shot back, a little shocked that she'd put it so baldly. It was admittedly a little silly to do so, but he'd been skirting around the topic this whole time. "I meant, you know, an ungrateful dickhead who pushes everyone away!"

"I don't know about what other people think but…" Kajiko paused as she fit her arm into a sleeve of her jacket, and then, a little self-consciously, she changed her mind and laid it on her shoulders, as one does a cape. "I guess it doesn't really mean much coming from me since I kinda _am_ you, but… I think you're pretty cool for a guy."

Kanji was surprised to find that her sentiment had birthed a kind of fullness in him. The feeling settled in his chest like a warm and fluffy newborn. "No, it really…" He battled through a sense of embarrassed relief. "It really does mean a… a lot…" Out of habit, he attempted to put on a stubborn scowl, but his swelling mood leaked past it, and his features relaxed into almost sheepish good humor. "It means I probably don't hate myself as much as I thought. 'S nice to know." Kanji stuffed his thumbs in his pockets and inspected the empty room. "So what now?"

"What now what?" said Kajiko distractedly. "Hey, wait… is Table-chan okay?" She started to collect the items that had been strewn around her feet when the table's focus on them had broken. While holding the other three objects in the crook of one arm, she eyed the severed, opposable leg with thinly veiled discomfort.

"I dunno… I did _throw_ it at a guy…" Feeling guilty, Kanji cautiously approached the fallen table and knelt down. "Um… sorry about that…" He picked it up by the edge and hoped it was either dead or and still friendly.

The Table slowly stirred and levered itself off the ground.

"You're a… you're a pretty chill table, Table-chan," said Kanji desperately. "You're all chill and not a killing-people table at all. That just ain't you." He frantically tried to wave Kajiko over. "Hey, Kaji! Give it… uh, give the table her stuff already. Give 'er her arm."

"It's a leg," said Kajiko. "Do I really gotta pick it up? And just what did you mean by, 'what now?'"

"Well it's got a hand on it so I figure it's an arm now, and yeah, you do. Don't be a— don't be all squishy about this."

"I'm not being… argh, okay, here's your arm, Table-chan… I have no clue why you'd want to carry it around with—ah! Oh, jeez…" Kajiko dropped the limb hurriedly, and it bobbed in the air above the Table. Its fingers had curled into a thumbs-up. "It can still move… That's a little freaky. What now what?"

Kanji met the blank staring gaze of the Laughing Table. "Uh… I guess that means it ain't mad at me?" he said hopefully. "Thumbs up is good?"

The hand folded into a peace sign and the table gave this a cheery little wave before placidly beginning to juggle the four items, including the arm, once again. "W-wow…" said Kanji, going red. "It really is pretty cute now…"

"_What now what?_" Kajiko repeated, as Kanji stood up. The girl crossed her arms. "Isn't it obvious? Look, didn't the other Kanji say that it was too late? That the Shadows didn't have anything in their way to keep 'em from attacking us?"

"You tryin' to say we're as good as dead and should just give up, huh?" Kanji said angrily. "That it?"

"Not unless that's what you're thinking," Kajiko returned. "And I know it ain't. I'm just saying it's not so hard to work out what we gotta do." She drew herself up. "I'm sayin' we gotta find a way out, and _fight_ our way out if we have to. You get me?"

Kanji clapped a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Sounds like my kind of plan! And hell," he laughed. "It sorta _was_. You know, you ain't such a bad guy yourself. For someone who ain't a guy, that is. Kidding," he added hastily. "I'm just teasin' you."

The girl didn't seem all that bothered this time around, anyway. "All right… you ready to kick a little ass around here?" she asked him.

"Damn straight!" Kanji cheered. He pumped a fist in the air. "Ready when you are! Let's do this!"

The shout seemed to die echoless and flat, swallowed by the ceiling without reply. Kanji held his triumphant pose for a long moment, and then slowly put his fist down.

"Uh… yeah… cool…" He looked around uncertainly. "So… what do we... do now?"

The halls offered no easy answer.

* * *

**Oh and yes, the OC is Table-chan. Call it a whim (even though it wasn't really but that's not important yet). It seemed a welcome break from all the Kanjis to me.**


	7. Suspicious is a hard word to say

**Author's Note: Sorry about the delay! I had reached the end of my fully polished pre-written material with the last chapter, and since I've been writing this story rather usually for me, in a very non-linear fashion with many drafts and edits, it took some time to throw this next chapter together. But since 'everyone' (there's not so many of you thus far, but I still treasure you guys and adore your feedback ^v^) wanted to see more of the full genderbend cast, I think you'll be reasonably pleased with this new chapter. Let the flashbacks commence!**

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**#07: 'Suspicious' is a hard word to say**

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_Several days earlier…_

"Budge _over_ a little, people!" someone groused in a very peeved whisper. The complaint came from a boy sporting a bowl cut of light brown hair and a cheery green workout shirt under his school jacket. "You're all hogging the view! I can't tell what's going on at all from behind Yoshiko's fat butt!"

"Well, I can't _hear_ anything going on over Chiyuu's squeaky kid voice!" hissed the girl in question, whose lower proportions were really not all that the boy was suggesting. She was wearing a trendy, if rather traffic-halting, cream and orange blazer and a lock of her reddish hair had been pulled with scrunchie into an odd, off-center topknot. A pair of earbuds dangled from over the front collar of her shirt. "If you keep quiet and stop staring at my butt, then _maybe_ I'll consider giving you a better view. Unless you think _this_ view is the better one, eh, Chiyuu?"

"I'm not staring at your butt!" the boy called Chiyuu complained. "At least, I wouldn't have to if you didn't keep sticking it in front of my face!" It was starting to turn into kind of argument only a pair of very close friends could ever have.

"There really isn't much room for all four of us behind the gate," another boy murmured. "It's such a tight fit… And looking through the fence like that, don't you think you're a little noticeable?" He was the tall, gangling type with pale skin and delicate features. His school jacket was mostly buttoned up, but a ruffled red cravat could be seen underneath it around his neck, and his black hair was very neatly trimmed.

"Jeez… Calm down, Yukihiro-san," the girl with the topknot said, rolling her eyes. "You're too much of a worrywart. Kajiko's not going to spot us." Then she gasped, reached up, and tapped the shoulder of the last member of the group of four, who had been enduring all the bickering with stoic calm. "Oh man… look who it is!"

The second girl crouched and peered through the spaces in the iron-wrought bars. Her hair was swept in a gray fringe over her forehead, squeezed under a yellow headband, and woven into a single short braid in the back. "You're right," she said. Her voice was quiet and level, with no trace of insincerity. "We've seen him before, haven't we?"

"That's the same guy who was asking her all those questions outside the textile shop!" Chiyuu, the boy in green spelled out for them. "There's something weird about all this. Is he some kind of _cop_ or what?"

"And look how _nervous_ she's getting," commented the boy in red, Yukihiro. "Her face is so flushed."

"You better believe it!" The girl referred to as Yoshiko gleefully nudged the other girl with an elbow. "Can you say suspicious or can you say _suspicious?_"

The quiet girl brushed her fringe of hair away from her eyes. "Hm. _Su_… _susupishu_…" She bowed her head with contemplative solemnity. "My expression ability must not be sufficient."

"Get your head in the game, Narukami!" griped the first boy. "This isn't a joke!"

Fortunately, the girl they were hiding from was deaf and blind to all these goings-on. Her attention, though she endeavored to pretend otherwise, was focused entirely on the navy-clad standing in front of her.

Kajiko hadn't known what to think of the youth the first time he'd approached her, and she didn't know what to think of him now. His eyes were concealed by the tipped-down brim of a blue cap, and since he was close to an inch shorter than her, it was difficult to see his face. Never looking up, speaking in a measured, almost world-weary tone, he at first gave the impression that he was not truly attending to the conversation, but then he'd catch onto the tiniest slip of the tongue or telling choice of words and you realized it was the exact opposite; he had been listening closely to every last detail.

It felt rather like being under a microscope. Kajiko had never been so acutely examined in her life, and it made her flustered and unsure. And on top of not knowing what to think of him, she wasn't really sure what this boy thought of _her_.

Nervously, she tugged at a stray thread on the hem of her jacket. The loose seam was her fault there – she'd sewn those stitches herself. Not too long ago, out of boredom, she'd taken an oversize male school uniform, which fit her shoulders but reached all the way to her thighs, and tailored the excess from the waist down into a modestly form-fitting overskirt. After personalizing it by adding a few studs and other details, she found it was close enough to the real uniform to be allowed at Yasogami High without it feeling like a concession of sorts to the fact that she was enrolled there as a student, and thus _should_ be (but wasn't usually) attending school.

As she picked at the fabric, she felt a craftsman's guilt from imperfection. Probably she should have used a sewing machine for the hem, but the one they owned made such a racket and her old man always got splitting headaches from loud noise when he was feeling under the weather.

The only reason all this came back to mind was that Kajiko wondered if the boy was working it out as well, unraveling the significance of the jacket, and probably the rest of her appearance, too. She figured this was why she felt so self-conscious right now about how she looked. Bleached hair and piercings in a dowdy, obviously handcrafted outfit; what exactly did he make of that?

"So, uh… you said I should meet you here?" she began.

"That's right," the boy said, inclining his head. "I apologize for my delay. Were you waiting long?"

Long? It had felt like forever. "N-no… 's fine." Kajiko mumbled. "I just… got here m'self…"

It was impossible to tell if the boy believed her. He did lift up his head ever so slightly, and although Kajiko didn't dare look him in the eye, she let her gaze flit over his face. He was younger than she had assumed from their last meeting. Just about her age, actually, but then he was so… so _mature_, and so _confident_.

With that in mind, it was best to get to the point straight away, right? Straight talk, man-to-man, that sort of thing. "You wanted to talk with me about somethin'?" Kajiko said bluntly. "Go on, spit it out already."

Yikes. Straight talk sounded a lot politer in her head than out loud. On second thought, maybe she _should_ stick to pleasantries. At least her new acquaintance seemed unperturbed. "I would merely prefer to handle matters in a more secluded area," he told her. After examining her expression he added, "Unless you don't feel comfortable with it. I admit I _am_ a stranger."

Kajiko swallowed. "Wh-what's there to be uncomfortable with?" She had a feeling she was red in the face. "Just what sort of 'matters' are we, uh, handlin' here?"

"Nothing of grave concern," said the boy tranquilly. "There is really no need to be so nervous. At this stage I'm merely gathering information."

"Wha—?! I-I ain't nervous!" insisted Kajiko, trying to convince herself this was true. "Gatherin' information. Y-yeah, that's cool with me. I get it." She couldn't untangle her mind from the words 'at this stage'. So this guy expected there to be other stages? What would those stages entail, exactly? And was she completely or only partially out of her damn mind?

"Then will the Samegawa flood plain be adequate?" the boy inquired.

Kajiko dithered a bit on the spot. The river wasn't on the direct path home from school and somehow it felt like going out of her way on this would make it feel like so much more of a commitment, but hell, she'd also actually _attended_ school today just so she could walk out and meet the kid here, like it was totally natural. "Y-yeah, the riverbank… whatever you want, I'm cool with it."

"Check it out… they're leaving!" she _didn't_ hear a female voice whisper from just inside the school courtyard. "Me and Chiyuu will tail 'em… you and Yukihiro-san can go stake out Tatsumi Textiles, in case the killer shows up."

"It's a plan," agreed the other girl, firm but, as always, quiet. She stood up and straightened the yellow bow on the front of her blouse. "Let's go, Yukihiro."

"But…" the boy with the red necktie began. "'In case the killer shows up…?' What do we do if he _does?_"

"You'll be safe," the girl with the braid assured him. "Don't worry."

All four of them turned to look at the soft-spoken, skinny-limbed young woman. "Don't you believe me?" she said demurely, blinking her doe-like eyes, which were full of chaste innocence and honesty… Eyes that, they remembered, would turn in battle from mist gray to a cold slate in an instant just before the delivery of the final killing blow.

The boy in green smacked his friend companionably on the arm. "Sheesh, Yukihiro, don't be a baby! Of course you'll be safe; you'll be with Narukami! She can totally protect you!"

The girl with the yellow bow and headband keenly nodded along to this. "I'll do my very best."

The tall boy's cheeks pinked as he was propelled towards his new partner. "… I think I just lost a bit of my man's pride there," he sighed ruefully.

"Come on, Chiyuu," urged the girl with the auburn topknot. "If we hang around any longer, we'll lose them."

Green, orange, yellow and red burst apart like firework sparks amid the smoke of their uniforms, heading out in pairs on their separate covert missions.

* * *

It was silent between Yue and Yukihiro for a little while, save for the occasional few words from the latter as he led them along a back route around the shopping district. It didn't feel all that awkward to Yue, but perhaps it had been, because when she turned and politely asked Yukihiro how he was feeling, his response was a nervous laugh.

"H-huh? Me?" stumbled the boy. "Oh! I'm… just fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You were inside the TV for several days," Yue reminded him. "So you feel fully recovered now?"

"It's true I'm a little tired," Yukihiro admitted. "But… I'm used to that."

Yue nodded respectfully. "You're very hard-working."

But this just added to the boy's unease. "My other self seemed to think that wasn't the case," he said, sounding ashamed. "It does seem easier to just slay the dragon, save the princess, and win half the kingdom." He sighed. "It sounds nice, but the way my other self put it didn't make it look heroic at all. He made it sound like being some kind of playboy. As if it was just an easy way out of real life."

This struck a chord with Yue, and she looked away, lacing her fingers together behind her back. "Just easy kicks…" she said, remembering Yoshiko's Shadow. They drew to a halt and peeped out from around the corner of the block. "This seems like a good place to watch the shop from."

"Did you know that in a lot of old fairy tales, the dashing heroes aren't even strong or brave?" Yoshiko mused, lost in thought. "They don't need to work hard for their reward. They just get 'chosen' by fate and then they cheat their way to a reward." He shook his head woefully. "It's kind of strange to tell stories like that. They're not very good role models for real life."

"Yes, it's… very strange," said Yue. She next remembered Chiyuu's Shadow. "Dashing heroes… really _are_ just a nice escape from reality, aren't they?"

"Oh," said Yukihiro, with an abashed chuckle. "I'm so sorry. I'm being such a pessimist right now!" He scuffed the sidewalk with his shoe, blushing. "I don't really know… what else to talk about. I don't usually spend time with… ah… girls my age. Not alone, I mean." Settling against the fence, Yukihiro combed a hand through his hair uncomfortably. "It really shows, doesn't it?"

"You're right. It really does," Yue agreed, deadpan.

Yukihiro cringed, but didn't take offence. "I thought it might… Isn't it awful?"

The girl in gray looked up with subdued surprise. "I think it's cute."

At this point, Yukihiro's cheeks matched his elegant necktie. "Don't say things like that so matter-of-factly!" he laughed. Judging from the girl's bemused expression, she hadn't found anything she'd said to be all that off-kilter. "You're so peculiar sometimes, Yue-san."

The gentle afternoon was in full swing now. The shadows – ordinary ones, of course, always shyly leaning away from the sun – were noticeably outstripping their owners in size. Yue kept her gaze around the textile shop, scanning the placid streets. So far, no one had lingered long enough to be a suspect.

"Do you think the kidnapper will really come here?" wondered Yukihiro.

"I'm sure of it," Yue said seriously. "Let's hope we're around to see."

Apparently Yukihiro was quietly hoping the opposite. "But… what if _he_ sees _us_, too?"

"It'll be all right. What's the worst he can do to us?"

Yukihiro's forehead crinkled a bit but eventually light dawned. "Well… I mean… I guess that'd be to throw us in a TV," he conceded with a giggle. "When you think about it like that, it's not so scary after all… Chiyuu and Yoshiko are probably the ones with the dangerous mission, not us." He reached a hand in his pocket. "Do you think I should call Chiyuu and see how the others are doing?"

Though she kept her eyes on the textile shop, Yue pulled out her own cell. "Actually, that reminds me… I think we should exchange phone numbers."

"O-of course!" said Yukihiro. He rattled off a series of digits. "For the case, right?"

"It's best if we're able to reach each other for any reason," the girl said, and Yukihiro had to wonder if she had deliberately left that response ambiguous, or if she was just being her usual inscrutable self. Yue turned around with her eyes cast down at her phone, tapping out a message on the keypad. "There. I sent you mine."

Yukihiro gave a little bow. "With this, I'll make sure to keep you informed on everything." He laughed at his poor word choice. "About the case, I mean. Now… I really should check up on the others…"

"Oh, there's no need," Yue informed him as she looked up. "They're right behind you."

Startled, Yukihiro whirled around. "They _are? _Wh-why are they in such a hurry? Is something the matter?"

"You bet there is! We've got trouble incoming!" yelled Chiyuu, dragging a winded Yoshiko behind him by the wrist. "Jeez! Don't slow us down, Yoshiko; she'll catch up!"

Yue and Yoshiko looked past their friends to see what they were fleeing from. A figure skidded around the corner of the street and barreled towards them. "You pricks still thinkin' you're so funny?" bawled their rage-filled pursuer. "Get your scrawny asses back here or I'll frikkin' _end_ you!"

"That's Kajiko Tatsumi!" Yukihiro exclaimed. "What on earth did you say to her to get her so angry?"

"We'll tell you later!" said Yoshiko, wheezing. "For right now? _Run!_"

Yue turned to Yoshiko. "I agree," she said solemnly. "We should run."

"But don't we outnumber her four to one?" pointed out Yukihiro, as he was pushed into flight with the rest. "Chiyuu, you know kung fu! Why are _you_ running?"

As Yoshiko had mentioned, whenever Chiyuu was agitated, he spoke fast, and whenever he spoke too fast, his voice started to regress to its shrill prepubescent octave range. It was doing this right now. "_Me? _I don't know kung fu! I watch kung fu movies and I try the moves out on my own! That's not the same thing at all! Besides, didn't she beat up a whole biker gang? That's like a dozen tough guys against one of her! Two girls and two skinny boys should be a breeze for her!"

"_Stop running away, dammit!_" screamed the enraged delinquent. "It's not… it's not what you think! You've got it all wrong!"

"Man, I wish we had our Personas outside the TV world!" Yoshiko moaned. "Why can't we be as tough out here as we are in there?"

"I think one of the painful truths you have to face about reality," said Yue gravely as she sprinted to the front, adjusting her yellow headband so it stayed in place, "is that you don't get free magical powers just for being yourself!"

"No, you really don't!" said Yoshiko. "You do get self-esteem but it's not like you can actually hit people with that! Real life can be such a pain in the ass!"

It was true. Real life brought sore legs and stiches in the side. It brought the jarring of feet against pavement and eye-watering fatigue. But what it did have that the TV world lacked were things like a blue sky and the rush of wind and the rustle of trees. Yue was sure that if they stopped running and confronted Kajiko, they probably could have cooled the situation without even having to come to blows, and even if it did come to that, there would be little risk of actual injury. But it was more fun to make it into a chase. There was something truly refreshing about a having a little ordinary, everyday fear once in a while.


	8. Table-chan's First Stand

**Author's Note:** **Apologies for any delays on this. I've been very busy starting to do college applications, and so that's why I haven't had as much time to write. :C But here's a chapter I finally banged out. Just please, remember to review so I can feel motivated to keep on writing... this college stuff has got me really stressed out, as I'm sure many of you can imagine. Enjoy the chapter!**

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**#08: Table-chan's First Stand**

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The halls of the sauna had fully cleared of fog save for a few straggling wisps, and, in some cases, the steam as well. If it had been a real facility, one would assume it had a disturbingly incongruous thermostat. There were some rooms and halls that were as hot as they had ever been, and others which were drafty and almost frigid.

"Damn! Another locked door!" Kanji pounded on the wood and then drew away. "They've been showin' up everywhere I turn." He scratched his ear. "Huh. Coulda sworn we went through this one already."

A call came from around a corner. "Yo! Kanji! Check this out!"

Kanji gave the door one last stubborn kick and then jogged down the hallway. "What is it?" He turned a bend and saw Kajiko kneeling in front of a wooden chest. The Laughing Table had strapped itself to her back like a knapsack, whirling its inventory over her head like a halo, and its blank mask stared out at Kanji whenever Kajiko was facing away from him. Kanji could have sworn that from time to time, its slit of a mouth changed shape ever so slightly. "Oh! Right, those boxes… I think saw a couple of 'em upstairs…"

The lid of the chest creaked open. "It's empty…" said Kajiko, disappointed. "I was hoping it—ow!" The hammer that the Laughing Table had been carrying around suddenly dropped out of the air, bouncing off Kajiko's head. "What the hell, Table-chan?! I won't carry you if you're gonna drop things on my skull! What're you doing?"

What looked like a wrinkled brown stone was rising out of the chest. Kajiko goggled at it as it maneuvered itself into a spot just above eye level, and then started flying in a neat circle. "Uh. Okay… You wanna hang on to that, go right ahead…" The girl stood up and shrugged at Kanji. "It's just an old peach pit. How'd that get in there?" She picked up the Table's hammer, which was about the length of her forearm, and smacked it against her palm, tried to bend it at the middle. "Stronger'n it looks…" she said appraisingly.

Kanji grinned. "I figure you could use this to break a kneecap or two."

"For the ones that _have_ knees," grumbled Kajiko, and then her eyes widened. "Like… say… th-that one—_look out!_" She pointed over Kanji's shoulder, and he spun around and caught a glimpse of something large and gray swooping towards him. With a hoarse shout, he lashed out with his fist, and the Shadow reeled backwards.

Kajiko ran up to his side and readied herself for a fight. The Laughing Table sprung off her back and scuttled behind the chest. "Well, shit… That's gotta be the creepiest one we've seen…"

"Damn straight…" muttered Kanji. "That thing is just messed up."

The Shadow that had surprised them seemed to be one monster, but it was composed of two figures side by side, clad all in a funereal gray, held together by long spears that had been impaled sideways through them. They looked indecently like two murdered corpses, their masked heads lolling forward, their bodies slumped on their conjoined crucifix.

But the Shadow itself was very much alive. It hung in the air, as if suspended by unseen hooks, and by the looks of it, it was preparing itself to swing itself forward for a second attack.

"Stay back!" yelled Kajiko, holding the hammer high. "Let me handle this!"

"Argh! I need a weapon, dude!" Kanji complained as Kajiko ran forward, brandishing the sledgehammer. "This ain't fair!"

"Hell, you could just swing Table-chan around or something!" said Kajiko. She spun the sledgehammer in a circle around her head to get up speed and then smacked the Shadow back with one, two, three powerful blows. "She probably won't mind... Damn! This one's not goin' down so easy! I can't make a dent on it!"

Despite Kajiko's surprising strength, the blows to the impaled twin corpses seemed to have had little effect. Kanji felt a prickle of static on her tongue and a sudden fear lashed through him. "Kajiko, get the hell back!" he ordered. "Get back _now!_"

It was too late. A forked pillar of lightning stabbed down from above and struck Kajiko, who arched her back and screamed. The bolt didn't even send her flying, as one might expect, just tore through the girl and then vanished into the ground. Kajiko was swaying where she stood, but somehow she _was_ still standing, and that was unbelievable in itself. Kanji didn't notice this though, fearing the worst.

"Kajiko! _KAJIKO!_ Shit, shit, _shit_…" Kanji caught the girl by the shoulders and dragged her back. His words were choked with rage and grief. "You're not dead, right? Tell me you're not dead or I'll—I'll kill you myself!"

The girl's eyes were shut tight. "Good thing I ain't dead yet," she told him grimly. "Just really… _really_… _pissed… off. _Now give me the frikkin' hammer."

Kanji held it over his head, out of the girl's reach. "You think I'm going to let that freak thing get away with shit like that?" he said, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "I'll take care of this from here."

"I already told you, just hitting it ain't gonna work! It'll just—"

Kanji let out a bloodcurdling battle cry and swung the hammer with all his might at the Twins. The hammer rebounded off the left Twin's chest and flew out of Kanji's grip. The boy gulped. "The hell…?"

The lightning struck. Kanji reeled, stumbled, and landed hard on his backside. "Ngh… damn… that hurt…" He looked over at Kajiko. "Just hitting it… ain't gonna work… you're right about that..."

The girl levered herself upright and faced off against the Twins. "I don't know why, but I feel pretty good for being hit with a giant magic lightning, how about you? Seems like those shots weren't intended as a warning."

"Yeah, come to think of it…" Kanji crawled to his feet. "But if it can't really hurt us, we can't really hurt it, so what do we do now?"

Kajiko pulled the sledgehammer out of Kanji's unresisting fingers. "I guess we just see if we're more resistant to their attacks or the other way 'round, huh?" She swung the hammer over her shoulder. For some reason, she'd remembered it being rather small and thin when Table-chan had been carrying it, but obviously she'd been mistaken. This was no twig, but a heavy-headed, formidable instrument of concentrated blunt force.

"Guess we're gonna take turns about this," said Kanji to the Twins, cracking his knuckles. "All right, let's do this!" He turned to Kajiko. "Yo! So, do I actually get to swing Table-chan around or was that you kiddin' with me?"

"I… eh… couldn't hurt… I guess you—_argh!_" A bolt of lightning had streaked out from a patch of air over their heads, or perhaps it had come up out of the floor – the counterstrike of lightning is the brighter one in nature, but this was magic lightning, so could follow the rules of physics or the rules of expected dramatics, depending on its mood. And it hit not Kanji, nor Kajiko, but the Laughing Table behind them.

"Table-chan!" they both yelled in horror. The Table had collapsed to the floor, its legs splayed out and feebly flopping, its items scattered around it. Without warning, the Twins flew in for a second strike, charge building up over the downed Shadow.

"Don't you _dare!_" shouted Kajiko, and she launched herself at the Twins in a blind fury. She got in a half-dozen frenzied blows before the lightning attack powered up again and threw her backwards.

"I guess… we ain't doing turns after all," said Kanji. He cracked his knuckles. "Well that suits me just fine. Bring it on, ya punk—_ack_!" He shuddered as another shock ran through him. "How is it getting in those attacks so fast?"

Behind them, the Laughing Table had jumped to its feet, disoriented. Its items shook as they levitated, as if the Table's invisible muscles that held its inventory in the air were becoming fatigued. Kanji and Kajiko were trying their hardest to keep up a continuous barrage of blows, but the lightning attacks kept coming as well, dealing small bits of damage every time.

"God… damn…" grunted Kanji, after one such attack. "I can't feel one of my legs…"

"It feels like _I've_ got a couple extra ones," complained Kajiko. "How many fingers 'm I holding up?"

"Fif—fifteen?" said Kanji blearily. "Fif—ty?" He picked up his fists and glared at the Twins. "Aw, who the hell cares how many of you there are! I'll take all of you down!"

Kanji charged forward, but was blown back by another lightning strike. He landed on the ground and didn't get up. The acrid smell of ozone was hanging heavy in the air.

It looked like the Twins were gearing up for a second attack, and Kajiko forced her heavy limbs into action, lugging the hammer off the ground and settling into an unsteady fighting stance. But she didn't get the chance, because something dark and square went hurtling over her head and landed between her and the Twins.

"H-huh? Table-chan?" she said in disbelief. "Get outta there! You don't do so good against its—"

The Table's inventory contracted and then burst apart, and a flash of light spun out of the center. There was a roar of heat and then, like a couple of straw effigies, the Twins went up in flame.

"_Table-chan?!_" Kajiko exclaimed, dumbstruck and woozy. "How the… how the hell did it do that?"

Somehow, despite physical strikes having little effect, the fire had knocked the Twins badly off balance. Their drab rags were smoldering. Kajiko realized that for once, they were actually weakened, perhaps even vulnerable. "It's down! I don't know how but… now's our chance, Kanji, let's do this! What are you waiting for?"

She turned to Kanji, but he was still slumped on the floor. "Get up, come on!" Kajiko pulled her male self to his feet and, seeing few other options, gave him a solid punch to the jaw. "Don't let that thing get to you!"

Kanji yelped and rubbed his face, but the dizziness in his eyes seemed to clear up. "Damn! Did you _really_ have to hit so hard?" He faced the Twins once again. "So they're weak now, are they? All right, let's see what we can do here!"

One wonders if the Twins knew that death was approaching, and if they felt it with the same dread that humans did, although the nature of Shadows was that they normally did not have such sentience. Still, some primitive spark of foreboding probably lit up in their fragmented psyche as the two Tatsumis bore down on them.

There was a series of loud thumps, yells, and grunts. Kajiko had to be a little cautious to make sure she only hit the target with the hammer and not anyone else, including herself, but Kanji was simply letting loose with everything he had. The bodies of the twins, which had been hard as rocks before, now felt just like sacks of rice against his fists. The spears easily splintered under the force of Kajiko's sledgehammer. And then, quite suddenly the whole creature came apart into dark, splotchy mist.

Kanji thumped his chest, wheezing a little. "Damn… wonder what happens if too much of that stuff gets in your lungs." He started to chuckle. "But, man, what a fight, huh? First time we actually killed one of those things on our… well…"

"We got a little help," said Kajiko, and she turned to the Laughing Table in awe. "And wasn't it just freakin' _amazing?_"

Kanji looked considerably less enthusiastic. "Yeah… I guess…"

"What's the matter with you?" Kajiko spread her arms out grandly. "Come on, we may got Shadows to fight, but we got some awesome power on our side to help us do it! The world is our lobster! Or… however the hell that saying goes…"

"You're… _sure_ it's going to help us, right?" said Kanji, with a wary eye on the Laughing Table. "Just, you know, making absolute certain that it really is… on our side?"

Kajiko considered their small, square ally. "Tch… what's to worry about? She could have done that to us any time when our backs were turned. But she didn't. So I figure she'd just not gonna. And she fought for us!"

"Only after the thing went for it… uh, I mean her," Kanji pointed out. "It knocked her flat! Maybe she was just getting back at it."

"Well, that just goes to show that the other Shadows don't see her as one of them, right? They don't attack each other, but they did attack her." Kajiko suddenly grimaced and clutched her shoulder. "Crap, it… still feels totally numb. That lightning really did a number on me, even if it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be."

Kanji reached out to help her and then stopped himself, drew his hand back as he reconsidered this move. "Well, uh… don't strain yourself, okay?" he said. "Try to leave most of the physical stuff to—" He caught her expression and backpedaled frantically. "Half! I mean _half_ of the physical stuff! To me! You know, share the load, all that crap… Wouldn't be, heh, wouldn't be right if you did more'n your, uh, _equal_ share, now, would it? And you gotta leave some of the fun for me!"

Kajiko considered this, and then handed Kanji the hammer. "Don't think I can swing it as good with my arm like this," she admitted sadly. "Here, go nuts with it. I'll figure something else I can do… Kick stuff, maybe." She felt a wooden edge of some kind nudge against her leg and looked down. "Table-chan? What's up?"

The three-legged Table slowly levitated the wrinkled peach seed up into Kajiko's hand. She closed her fingers around it, and then held it up for inspection.

"I guess it… she wants you to have it," said Kanji. "Wonder why."

The Table sprang up onto Kajiko's back, clambored over her shoulder, and then floated its severed arm down in front of the girl's face. Leaning itself around her head to get a good look at her features, it finally found what it was looking for, and pointed an index finger at her mouth.

Kajiko leaned away from this. "Stop that!" she said. "What're you tryin'a do?"

The Laughing Table poked the girl's mouth more urgently, and pointed at the fruit pit.

"Ah… I get it!" said Kanji, as light dawned. "She wants you to eat that thing! But why would she want that?" He shrugged. "Why don't you try it?"

"I'm not eating some weird thing we found in a box!" protested Kajiko. "And that thing's a whole peach pit; you don't just swallow those! I might choke on it! H-hey, stop—!" The Table swooped its hand out and plucked the seed from Kajiko's fingers, then firmly pressed it to the girl's lips, which quickly clammed shut. "Mrmf!"

"I dunno, Kaji-kun," said Kanji thoughtfully. "Table-chan seems pretty keen on it. And you were the one who said you trusted that thing." Kajiko just shook her head and tried to ward off the Table's insistent prodding.

The Laughing Table appeared exasperated by all this. It removed the seed from the girl's mouth, let it levitate above its own hand, and snapped its fingers. The seed shivered in mid-air, then broke in two. A faintly luminescent cerulean mist started to spill out of a hollow center from each half, until the Table righted the halves like cups. One such 'cup' it brought to its own slit of a mouth, as if showing Kajiko how it was done, and that it would be safe to eat. The glowing mist poured out into the mouth on the mask.

A stream of blue light then rose from the Table and it shook itself out, looking far more chipper. Its goblet and disk seemed shinier, its cloth appeared to brighten in color, and its mask almost could have been smiling, just at the corners of its mouth.

Confused but less frightened, Kajiko imitated the Table and lifted the seed to her lips. As the cool, tangy smoke flowed down her throat, she felt a rush of energy, and a veil seemed to lift off her eyes. She tossed the spent shell of the seed into her mouth and crunched down. Sparks appeared in the corners of her vision, and the pain she was feeling in her limbs seemed to lift.

"Whoa… what _is_ this stuff?" she said wonderingly. "He-hey! Not _bad! _My shoulder's like brand new!"

"So it really did do something?" asked Kanji. "I mean you kinda glowed for a second there… that was part of the effect, huh? It actually works?"

"Hell yeah, it does!" said Kajiko. "Man, I feel like I could take on an army! Thanks a ton, Table-chan!" She scratched the Table's surface affectionately.

Kanji frowned and crossed his arms. "What, so I don't get any magic healing peach seeds? Thanks a ton, Table-chan, for not _sharing_ with me, when I'm just as worn out as Kajiko here!"

"Well, maybe we'll find some more?" suggested Kajiko. "It looks like those chest things ain't so empty after all!"

This cheered Kanji up immensely. "Yeah, an' I saw some more upstairs! Wanna go check 'em out? See what we can root out, huh?"

The two of them had to take a moment to reorient themselves, and remind themselves where the stairs were, and then eagerly raced for them. Or, at least, Kajiko raced, with the Table folded up on her back once again, and Kanji followed at a halting skipping pace, still trying to shake off the numbness in his legs.

"You know what Table-chan sort of reminds me of?" Kajiko said as she pushed open a door. Her eyes widened. "Ohshitno—get out, get out, get out…" She hurriedly slammed the door shut and then pulled Kanji away from it. "Shadows in there… we gotta find another way around."

"We ain't fightin' 'em?" Kanji asked. "Aw, come on, Kajiko…"

"There's three of them," she said bluntly. "You wanna charge in, go right ahead."

They wandered for a bit along the hallway as they tried to find an alternate route, but it didn't look like they were going to succeed at this. "What _does_ Table-chan remind you of?" Kanji asked as they looked into another dead end room.

"You ever seen that movie,_ Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away_? Table-chan… heck, all the Shadows… remind me a little of No-face."

"Oh! Yeah, I totally get you!" Kanji nodded along happily. "That movie was really cute— I-I mean… it was… I…" He stopped himself and looked away. "Yeah, uh, I… I sorta like that kinda stuff…"

"I know, me too…" Kajiko tilted her head up to the ceiling. "And I guess this _is_ a bathhouse of the spirits. Sort of."

"It sort of is, yeah," agreed Kanji. "Hey, that makes me feel a whole lot better about this place." He peeked around a corner and then threw out an arm. "We got one Shadow, facing the other way. Want to risk it, catch it off guard?" He cracked his knuckles. "Come on, we have Table-chan on our side, right?"

"Nah, 'cause… I think we went that way and it's just a dead end…" Kajiko turned around and headed back for their original route. "Might as well just risk it runnin' through those other three. Once we get to the stairs they might not follow us up."

Kanji seemed disappointed that they weren't going to fight, but he did have the sense that she was right about it being a dead end.

"All right," Kajiko said, once they'd positioned themselves on either side of the door. "Ready… set…"

Kanji kicked open the door and rushed in with a yell. "_Raaaaaaaghh!_"

"What the shit, Kanji?!" yelled Kajiko. She dashed after him. "I didn't say go yet!"

The three Shadows had all reared up in surprise at the sudden entrance, then moved as one towards the two kids.

"Table-chan!" ordered Kajiko. "Do your fire thing on any that get too close!"

The Table gave a crisp salute and then drew a spark of orange light out of its spinning cup. The spark hovered at the ready, and then flew out at one of the blobs crawling its way towards them. As soon as the fire hit, the Shadow puffed up, let out a burst of smoke, and then flew backwards in the form of a pair of Twins. Table-chan dealt out a few more tongues of flame to the other two Shadows and then threw a fireball at the downed Twins.

Kajiko wrestled open the door at the end of the hall. "Come on, Kanji! Don't dawdle!"

"I ain't dawdlin'!" the boy yelled indignantly, and he sprinted through to the next room. "Stairs! We found stairs! Let's book it!"

The two of them pounded up the flight of steps and then stopped for breath at the top. "I think we did it," gasped Kanji. "Whew! That was great! Now let's find some more of those seed things so my legs don't give out…"

"Where did you see those other treasure chests?" asked Kajiko. "Let's make this trip quick, okay?"

"Oh, yeah, just right around the corner of the—" Kanji stopped. There was no corner. The stairs had not opened to a hallway, but a room. "Wait, shit, I musta gotten confused… what happened here?"

"No, you're… you ain't confused," said Kajiko. "I know it wasn't like this before." She covered her eyes. "L-let's go back down, okay…? J-just want to make sure we…"

Kanji looked at her in alarm and then turned and rushed down the stairs. Kajiko followed behind warily. "Watch out for the Shadows, though—"

"Oh… oh _shit_," said Kanji. "Well, damn, that really… puts a wrinkle on things…"

The place that the stairs opened to was a completely different. As far as a person could tell in a place as structurally identical as the bathhouse, it bore absolutely no resemblance to the room they'd ran through. Kajiko rushed through the door ahead of her.

"There's no more Shadows!" she said in disbelief. "And it ain't the same room, I swear… wait, Kanji, where're you going?"

He was rushing up the stairs. "I gotta see something! Just wait there!"

"No!" yelled Kajiko. "What're you thinking?!" She pounded after him. "If we get split up on either side of the stairs, who knows what'll happen?"

"I thought so!" said Kanji, calling down from the top of the steps. "It's a hallway but! But it ain't even the same one I remember, neither!"

Kajiko rubbed her eyes. "What the hell is _with _this place? It literally resets itself every time we—"

Kanji nodded and leaned against the wall, spent. "Guess we'll hafta be a lot more careful 'bout all this. I mean, what if we get split up?"

"That's what _I_ said!" complained Kajiko. "That's what I _just _said!" She smacked her palm to her forehead. "Man, you really don't listen, do you? Well, come on… if the stairs reset things, then it's no good looking up here for treasure chests. Might as well keep headin' down. Keep an eye out for more chests, though. We could use all the magic crap we can find."


	9. The Many Ways of Being K Tatsumi

**Author's Note: So I thought it might be interesting to hear this story from the point of view of a character we don't get to hear too much from when it comes to inner thoughts... :) It's quite a short chapter, more like an interlude, really, while I work on the meaty stuff that's coming up pretty soon.**

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**#09: The Many Ways of Being K. Tatsumi**

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Once upon a time, in a bygone era, the place used to be a legitimate bathhouse. It had sensuous curls of steam rising from the bubbling baths, and a level of humidity and heat that actually was what you might expect in a _frikkin' sauna._

The other Kanji was really starting to resent the arrival of that awful female version of his human self. She was the leading needle in a cross-stitch of frigid blue dark through his lovely rosy paradise, and now everything was falling to shit. Life, or, rather, existence as he lived it, just wasn't _fair_.

Things had been going so well, too, and he'd nearly garnered his own sense of individuality when his moronic human self kept rejecting him, but then that girl had to go and mess that up too, by _humanizing _him like that! Shadow Kanji _wasn't_ human; couldn't she see that? _Why_ did she have to treat _everything_ like it was a person?

Shadow Kanji sat, stewed over this, and sulked, submerged in one of the few baths that had retained some of its original glory. Not even the heat could relax his muscles, though… god, he was so _tense!_ Wouldn't it be nice if someone came in and gave him a shoulder rub…?

Whenever he got into this train of thought, his mind kept floating back to that handsome youth in the blue cap… really, for all his exaggerated sexuality, there wasn't anyone who actually made this Kanji all gooey inside like that boy had… it was what had awakened this side of him, he was sure of it. Of course it had been hiding all this time, hiding from the girls and their pointy little comments…

Shadow Kanji sunk his head all the way under the water and blew bubbles out his nose. There. Now it was a Jacuzzi. What a wonderful invention.

He really hated the way that Girl Kanji hadn't acted, well, all that much like any other girls. She'd acted like his male self – well, she _was_ his male self down to most of her life story, just with one chromosome changed – and that was puzzling because Kanji had been so sure that one chromosome meant a lot more than it seemed to. Why wasn't she happy, either? I mean, come _on_, she clearly still had an interest in sewing, judging by that that _magnificently_ hand-tailored jacket she was wearing, and yeah, she _was_ a girl, so then why would anyone make fun of her because of that? Why did she act the way she did? The questions just kept going round and round in the other Kanji's brain.

From one point of view, Shadow Kanji could probably have stayed underwater indefinitely, since he didn't derive his energy from oxygen but from his host's own mind. But, since he was in human form, it was courteous to obey certain conventions, like breathing, and so he rose out of the water and took a deep lungful of air.

And now this water was getting cold too. Well, screw this. He wasn't going to accommodate himself to any chilly-ass baths. Besides, he didn't want his fingertips to get all wrinkly.

He crawled out and reached for a towel. When none, to his irritation, appeared, he called up a tiny Shadow and wove it quickly into soft inanimate terry-cloth before it could develop into something more alive. He didn't want to wear something even slightly sentient around his nether regions; that was just _nasty_. Even he had to draw the line there.

And since it _was _cold, Shadow Kanji was also slightly regretting turning down the girl's offer of her coat, but if he'd taken it and worn it, it would have felt like she had some kind of power over him. And he wasn't going to fall for that. Nuh-uh. He was Kanji's Shadow and he was either going to smoke that kid out and be accepted or he was going to kill him. Two possible endings, nice and simple. None of that 'take a third option' crap.

The barely dressed Shadow boy stretched himself out languorously. A cat-like smile formed over his features. It was time to go Kanji-hunting. He'd left the two humans alone for long enough, and hopefully that girl had been sucked back into her own dimension by now so that when he confronted his human self again, there wouldn't be any more icky complications.

Shadow Kanji didn't just love men, after all, he loved _being male_, and taking that to every extreme. There was something so exhilarating about being strong and sturdy and never having to shrink away from anything, never having to fold over in willowy deference to society… and then the fun began when you played with it, made it something that people didn't expect. Something that could delicately sew and paint and then turn around and crush people's spines with its bare, meaty hands. But it wasn't fair when _girls_ got to do it too, right?

Except he didn't really feel like that, not deep down where the core of his real power resided, which was a tiny kernel of sparkling truth in a sea of fog and shadow. That spark didn't care about boys or girls… it just wanted to feel wanted, to make it feel loved. _Won't someone, anyone, please accept me?_

Shadow Kanji tried to act as though that spark of truth didn't exist. He didn't quite see the irony of this, but he knew it just didn't feel all that easy to accept. Wouldn't it make more sense if he was actually 'strange' or 'queer' – some state of being that actually had a name? It occurred to him that just being the person that you were wasn't something you could neatly label, and that was too much to handle sometimes. Every person had many sides to them. There were just too many ways of being K. Tatsumi.

The self, the shadow, the female self and her own shadow, even that stupid Laughing Table was surely carrying a little piece of K. Tatsumi around with it. Too many Kanjis, too much self to go around, and no one simple way to say what their problem really was. And it had to be all one thing, right? One unifying principle that explained what it really meant to _be_ the person that they all were, deep down.

So Shadow Kanji started searching, sending out tendrils of thought into the realm of the bathhouse, trying to pinpoint the place where the tendrils were rejected – that would be where the human soul was hiding. But right now, all that the other Kanji was drawing was a big blank question mark of nothing. _Such_ a bother… this night should have been over _hours_ ago, the moment that the fog left the Shadow World.

It was apparent that the Shadow boy would have to look for his human Kanji the _boring_ way. He slouched out of the room, pouting with grumpy resignation. Again, it was oppression, plain and simple. That girl was probably distracting Kanji by making him worry about her and consider her own problems and boost up his own confidence on their interaction and that was like an active camo suit when it came to a Shadow-self's senses. Which, because it meant he would have to trudge around this place like a human, would invariably make him more human, and add more of this complex guilt over his very existence. If he didn't know himself better than that, he'd think that his girl self planned it out like that. But of course she didn't. She was just bumbling along and somehow, for whatever reason, she was getting things to turn out her way. Both of them were, as a matter of fact. They'd just waltzed right out of Shadow Kanji's clutches and started beating up Shadows left and right, like it wasn't any big deal.

A sense of fond familiarity softened Shadow Kanji's heart, just a little. Of course they would do that. It was just such a Kanji thing to do.

The Shadow set out on his pursuit, padding along the carpet and leaving behind a trail of wet footprints on the hardwood floor. What level could they have reached by now? Well, it didn't take a genius to figure that they would have headed down, so Shadow Kanji could at least go in that direction and hope to catch one of them as they blundered about.

All around him, the lesser Shadows were really starting to get restless. They were such lovely minions at some times, but at others they were a real pain in the ass. The other Kanji could feel the twisted up thoughts emanating from the walls, and he couldn't help but look over his shoulder every so often. Oh for the love of… what had gotten into his silly little head now? Was he actually starting to _fear_ the other Shadows? Wouldn't that be something?

Just then, a shudder ran through the architecture of the building, and the disoriented Shadow Kanji smacked face-first into a newly formed wall. Someone had triggered the reset on the stairs, hadn't they? Normally Shadow Kanji wouldn't notice, because he'd be drifting around through the ether like all the rest of the Shadows when no one was looking at them, one towel-clad, smokin' hot Schrodinger's pussycat.

But _seriously_, why was he having to deal with this corporeality crap right now anyway? If he got his head twisted around enough, he was going to end up with a Shadow self of his own, and that would just make things too meta for his comfort zone. And it took a lot to get outside of Shadow Kanji's comfort zone.

He stepped outside of the room which had used to be a hallway, rubbing his forehead. He had to take a moment to fix his hair in the reflection of a bath – because all of the baths were totally un-bubbly and flat by now, still as mirror glass. It had to be the creeping effects of the girl's presence here, and Shadow Kanji wasn't sure if his control over the bathhouse – well, it wasn't like he was really so much in control of it as he was the most sentient part of it – could be harnessed to fix this problem. He decided that he was pissed off enough to try.

His fist closed in the air. Steam began to rise from one of the baths. Would you look at that… so it really could work! Not bad, not bad… He sashayed over to a second one and twirled heat into it. The surface of the bath roiled with convection. Ah… now he was getting somewhere! Why couldn't he have tried this earlier—?

A very unsettling thing caught the corner of his eye. One of the lesser Shadows, which had followed him here, was sleepily oozing back into the floorboards. It was almost as if the steam was bringing back the fog as well… And come to think of it, perhaps it was. That steam didn't all look like natural water vapor to his Shadow senses. It was making him feel rather drowsy and calm and peaceful…

Shit! This was perhaps not as good of an idea as he'd thought. He didn't want to fill the place with fog again; if he did that, then he'd be forced to slink away with the rest of the Shadows, missing his chance to confront his human self. That would simply not do at all. Shadow Kanji pulled out of his trance and tried to flap away any threads of fog that had appeared. "Go on, shoo!" he said, swatting at them. "Shoo, shoo, shoo! Back to the human world you go…"

Shadow Kanji rubbed his eyes, irritated. Because of one cold Girl-Kanji, his whole sauna was ruined. That, or his power as a Shadow. Why couldn't she just leave him alone?

Come to think of it… if she was out of the picture somehow, then that outside influence on this reality would be gone… and so would the thing keeping Kanji from having to face his Shadow. Yes, the only solution here was really to remove the contaminating element. So many birds killed with one stone…

If he could freakin' _find_ them, that is! Shadow Kanji felt a bit of him writhing inside at all this injustice, the anger cutting through the façade he kept up – no, it wasn't a façade, shut up, shut up, shut up… He took a long, deep breath. Okay, he was calm. He was calm and cool and smooth and he was going to _find those little shits if it took him all night— _okay maybe he wasn't all that calm. But still. As long as he kept it in his head, it was sort of like it didn't really exist, right? Right?

Oh, for crying out loud… He was _definitely_ going to end up with a Shadow at this rate. Argh! Why was it so difficult to be a sexy gay sauna-goer when what he kept ending up as was just… plain old Kanji Tatsumi? Why was it so hard to be Kanji without, well, _being Kanji_, with all the bells and whistles attached_?_ Like, there was only so far you could go down that route before you started to get reactive and sensitive and full of both rage and compassion and being a total dork in every way that you weren't either unfailingly angry or unfailingly kind. Sure, he kind of had a complex when it came to certain things, but that just wasn't strong enough to smother up all the rest of his personality.

Shadow Kanji stomped through the halls, not even bothering to sway his hips in the _slightest_. This was too much of an outrage. One way or the other, he was going to end this lunacy right now, before his existence got any more tangled up than it already was.

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	10. It's better than dying alone, right?

**Author's Note: Apologies for the delay, and for the lack of things happening in the previous chapter. I do hope you have read it carefully, though, since it contains some important information that should be relevant later on. Anyway, there's no need to worry, because I promise you that things happen in this chapter. So many things. All of the things.**

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**#10: It's better than dying alone, right?**

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Picture a door. It's a tall door, leading into a taller room full of baths, but it's still very ordinary, made of solid creamy brown wood and adorned with simple carvings. Placid, sedentary, like most architectural structures. Now picture it bursting open.

Kanji tumbled through first, overbalanced, and ended up sprawled out on the carpet. The next person through was Kajiko, with the Laughing Table hanging off her back like a knapsack. The girl had the door slammed behind her in seconds. She pressed her palms against it, bracing it shut against an unseen force from outside that was pushing to get in.

"Dammit…" groaned Kanji. "That Shadow had a kick like a mule…Why'd you have to open that freaking chest, anyway?"

"But we'd been getting so much luck with the other ones! How the hell was I supposed to know that last one was hiding a _ten-foot hunk _in a codpiece?" growled Kajiko, as sweat poured off her face. "How did it _fit?_" She could even feel the perspiration burning in her lungs as she heaved for breath. "Hey! Little help over here?"

Kanji tried to stand, but then his face went deathly white and he sank down to one knee, clutching his chest. "I think… I think I mighta busted a rib…"

Kajiko was slowly starting to relieve pressure on the door. She still held out her hands, but she took a few steps back. "It ain't tryin' to get through anymore," she finally decided. "They kinda do that, don't they? Guess we're okay for now. Wait…" She turned around, eyes widening with concern. At the same time, the Table clambered off her back and trailed her as she approached Kanji, feebly spinning its items. "You really think you broke a rib?"

It was strange to see the tough and brawny Kanji so stricken by injury. For a fleeting moment, the boy actually looked his age, like a scared fifteen year old. "Maybe more'n one, I don't know… I ain't so much of an expert as you'd think, Kaji-kun. Usually I bust theirs before they bust mine, you know what I'm sayin'?" He forced out a snort of laughter, which made him wince in pain.

For all that he was putting on a brave face, Kanji seemed almost vulnerable. "Well, you shouldn't go… busting _anybody's_ ribs in," Kajiko said uneasily. "It ain't… it just ain't polite."

"When I want to be polite to people, I shake their goddamn hand," said Kanji, scowling fiercely. "When I bust ribs, I ain't aimin' for polite."

"And you shouldn't go tryin'a bash in the kneecaps of big hunks wearing codpieces, neither," Kajiko persisted. She knelt down and put a hand on her male self's shoulder. "'S foolhardy, that's all I'm saying."

Kanji rolled his eyes. "Yeah, big talk comin' from you. How many times have I had to bail your ass out by now? I've seen you out there, bashin' stuff up, and nearly getting bashed in yourself."

"Well next time I do, you can tell me off and we'll call it even," Kajiko said, draping one of Kanji's arms over her shoulder. "C'mon, dude… let's get you up. We shouldn't stay in one place for more'n a few minutes."

He was rather a heavy burden to support, she reflected, as she stood him up, but between her own strength and his stubborn pride, which kept him bearing most of his own weight, it wasn't an impossible task.

"'M okay…" he kept muttering. "'S fine."

"I'd heal you up, but we ran outta medicine things a while ago…" The girl surveyed the room. "Damn! There's only one exit… Should we risk it?"

"I dunno… I'm kinda hopin' to pay that guy back for this," Kanji growled. "Teach him to go puntin' me in the gut like I was a freakin' soccer ball." He ground his teeth and then angrily spat on the floor. "But we don't even have a clue how to hurt that that thing! None of what that Table was doin' did much good on him, neither!"

"We'll have to try sneaking past," said Kajiko. "They ain't all so bright. Sometimes you can get the slip on 'em."

Kanji cast his eyes down and sighed heavily. "Look, I figure if he's still out there you could sneak past that guy, but I can't do shit like this, and neither can you with me hangin' off your shoulder." His eyes tightened. "Just… get the hell out of here, okay? I'll catch up if I can."

"What!? You gotta be kidding me!" Kajiko exclaimed. "There's no way in hell I'm just leaving you here! Every time we hang around one room for too long, another damn Shadow comes crawling out of the wall! You'll be killed!" She started to drag a limping Kanji towards the door. "No, this is how it's gonna go down, listen. If I go out first, then it'll see me first and chase me. That'll give you time to get past it. I'll take the loop around the floor and meet you at the stairs, and then we'll run up them and reset the whole floor so the big hunk disappears when we come down again. Got that?" She was very proud of this clever display of lateral thinking.

But apparently Kanji wasn't. "You're crazy!" he yelled. "You take the long way around, who knows how many Shadows'll be waiting? Oh, that's right, _we _do, 'cause we already went that way! And there's a whole shit-ton of 'em!"

"So what?" Kajiko said. "I'll just run past 'em!"

"All that way? You're outta breath!" snarled Kanji. "You've got a stitch in your side! Just leave me here, dammit!"

"Then I ain't budging," said the girl flatly. "We're in this together. Anyway, neither of us got a snowball's chance in Hell out there on our own. Now just… sit down or something. And try not to move so much!" Carefully, she leaned the reluctant Kanji against the side of one of the baths. "I'll just… have a look around…"

"What's there to see?" Kanji mumbled. "Every damn room looks the same in… here… uh… what're you doing…?"

The Laughing Table had sidled up next to him and slowly skewed its legs forward, its emotionless face swaying with the cloth, which drew closer and closer to Kanji's shoulder. The boy nervously leaned away from the Table, which only tilted further in response, until it finally overbalanced on its one shaky front leg and toppled into Kanji's lap. "Whoa!" he yelped. "What the—?"

After a moment of disorientation, the Table folded its legs up comfortably and settled its floating items into a low, lazy orbit. Kanji's expression softened. "Hey… 's up with you, little guy—uh, I mean girl?" He jolted himself out of his trance. "I mean… what the heck's this dumb thing still doing here, huh? What did you even do to it back when you first met it?"

Kajiko crossed her arms and turned her head, hiding her face in the collar of her jacket. "I swear I didn't make her like this," she muttered. "All I did was trick her into knifin' the lock on the door that led me outta that place and into here."

"And what sort of place was it, anyway? I don't remember if you said anything before about that."

It looked like Kajiko hoped she hadn't. "It wasn't anything!" The girl slumped against the wall and zipped her jacket up to her neck. Her whole being seemed to contract with that simple change of attire. "It was just cold and scummy… and empty…"

"Well… did you talk to it or something?" Kanji persisted. His brow furrowed, and he poked the tablecloth that was now draped over his knee. "Dammit… there's a tear in the…"

"Okay, so maybe I talked to her a _little!_" the girl grumbled. "All I did was call her a three-legged dipshit and… and tell her not to laugh at me!"

"And it's such a nice pattern…" Kanji turned to the girl without thinking and blurted, "D'you have a needle I could borrow?"

Kajiko blinked. "Uh… what?"

Kanji didn't even bother trying to pass off his slip of the tongue for anything unrelated. If he really believed that the words had only been spoken in the privacy his own mind, maybe it would really have been that way. "I-I mean… what d'you mean, it… she was _laughing_ at you? The thing's only got one face."

"Yeah but that's why it still felt like she was laughing… She coulda jumped me, but instead she just waited and messed around, like she knew I couldn't do nothin' about it. But not smug about it or anything, just lookin' at me with that face like it was serious business." Kajiko rolled her eyes. "So, laughing. Havin' a good time of it."

"That's a lot of complex stuff to think up about a monster trying to stab the everlovin' shit outta you," Kanji told the girl, sounding rather impressed. "What gives?"

"Dunno," said Kajiko sullenly. "Figure I just wanted it to be some kind of _person_ I turned around to, even if it was trying to kill me. Least I'd have some company then. Better'n dying alone, right?"

It occurred to Kanji that his other self probably would have sympathized with this idea a lot more than Kanji thought he did. Maybe there was a reason why having Kajiko around was a good luck charm when it came to dealing with Shadow Kanji. For some reason, she didn't seem all that freaked out by the guy. She'd been irritated with him, sure, but who wouldn't be pissed if someone you knew – or kind of knew, anyway – was dicking around and causing trouble for you, right? She treated him like he was normal…

Well, whatever that Shadow guy _really_ was – because he sure as hell wasn't a piece of Kanji – he wasn't anything to laugh at. He'd seemed pretty capable of killing them both out of sheer petulance, and the fact that he'd backed off was a miracle. "Damn… I really owe you one," he told Kajiko wonderingly.

"Y-you… you do? Wh-what for?" The girl gulped and went red, shying back with an expression resembling angry surprise. _Do I really do that?_ Kanji thought. _Huh. It's… kinda cute. But that's probably 'cause she's a girl. Men shouldn't get all flustered like that, right?_ He could trust himself not to blush for thinking this, for studying a girl's features so carefully, since it wasn't like there was any physical attraction prompting such thoughts. She was practically family, like a twin sister or something even closer than that.

Kanji shrugged. "I dunno… for sticking around, I guess."

Come to think of it, it was pretty damn nice, he decided, to be able to talk to a girl – hell, to _anyone_ – without having to worry about being attracted them, or _not_ being attracted to them, for all the implications that brought up, and furiously wondering which of the two applied.

The girl idly trailed a hand along the surface of the water in one of the baths, making ripples. "Man, that _is_ cold… _Ice_ cold. How'd it get like that?"

"Don't ask me," said Kanji, realizing all of a sudden that he was stroking the surface of the table like one would a cat. "You're the one with the cold world. Ain't it 'cause of that?"

Kajiko huffed. She didn't like being blamed for things. "I know that's what your Shadow said, but d'you really believe the guy? He said a lot of things about this place that I don't buy into." She stared at her reflection in the water and then poked a ripple through its forehead. "Like about people… watching us?"

Her tone became increasingly frustrated. "If they could see that we were trapped here, wouldn't they try to do something? Like maybe, I don't know, _get us out?_" She ended her sentence with an incoherent, strangled cry and kicked the side of the bath. "I've been all alone in here for _days!_ Aren't the police out looking? Don't they _care!?_"

It was dawning on Kanji that something was very, very wrong. All of a sudden, his girl self had almost seemed unhinged. "Hey… c-calm down, Kaji-kun," he said, swallowing hard. "You know it ain't like that…"

"Not. Like. _What?_" said the girl, through gritted teeth, staring fixedly at the water.

Her fury surprised Kanji. "Not like… not like all that stuff you just said, about them not caring! What else would I be—? What the hell's gotten into you?"

"N-nothing!" she said guilily, tearing her eyes away from her reflection. She was shivering. "God, I hate this place! I just want to go home! Is that too much to ask?"

"No! O'course not!" Kanji levered himself up on the side of the bath behind him, ignoring the pain in his side. "Ngh… I mean… how long've you been awake in here? I don't remember it bein' so long for me. It only felt like six hours, maybe less."

"I don't know either, just that it was… like forever…" she said, and knelt down, staring sullenly into the water with her chin resting on the lip of the bath. "Someone's bound to come find us, right?"

Kanji bit his lip. "You scared, huh?"

The girl tensed, and then shrugged her shoulders. "Y-yeah. Kinda scared. That's all."

_Liar._

"Wh-what?" said Kajiko, jerking upright. She glanced over at Kanji. "Did you just say somethin'?" Then the girl sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Damn, I'm jumpy. It's nothin'."

_Liar! Liar, liar, liar…_

"S-stop that!" the girl said, flushing red. "I said stop!"

"What are you—? Hey, Kajiko, are you… you _sure_ you're all right?" demanded Kanji. "You really don't look too great right now! A-and who the heck are you talking to?"

Kajiko clenched her fists. "I'm fine, dammit!"

"_'Fine'? Ha! Is that what you really believe? I don't think so! Kajiko Tatsumi is a big fat LIAR!_"

"I'm _not!_" she shouted into her reflection. "Shut up and leave me alone!"

Her reflection rippled, and its eyes glowed yellow. "_'Shut up and leave me alone', huh? Man, do people get a lot of that from you!_" It sniggered. "_Who you tryin'a fool? All you ever do is hide behind your pathetic little attempts to seem worthy of society's respect…_"

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," the girl said automatically, but she seemed entranced by the image in the water. "You're not makin' any sense!"

"_And the most hilarious part?_" The reflection laughed, in her voice."_You totally_ _SUCK at it! Even Guy-Kajiko over there makes some kind of effort to fool people, but you? The only person you've ever fooled is yourself!_"

Kanji was forcing himself to his feet, using the lip of the bath as a handrail as he dragged himself towards the girl. "Don't listen to it, Kajiko! Just leave it alone—argh!" His side gave out and he collapsed on the floor with a cry of pain.

"_I wonder… why hasn't anybody come looking for you?_" Kajiko's distorted voice said slyly. A hint of anger snuck its way in. "_Maybe it's because nobody wants to rescue you, hm? Ever think about it THAT way!?_"

The girl covered her ears. "I don't hafta listen to this shit! It ain't true!"

"Then _don't_ listen!" insisted Kanji, struggling to get to his feet, but failing. "Stop lookin' over there; look at me, dammit!"

Kajiko shuddered and turned her head ever so slightly towards her male self. Her expression was of dazed fear mixed with fury. "It… isn't… true…" she said haltingly, and her eyes did not appear to be focusing quite right.

_What a BEAST of a Shadow you must have, darling…_

Well shit. It certainly looked like that was the case. When he got down to it, Kanji still didn't have a clue how this 'Shadow self' thing really worked, but he figured it was all designed to throw you off your game, to rattle your head around until you cracked. And with the look in his female double's eyes, that was clearly working. She'd been caught by surprise and now it had a hold on her mind…

And since this was the place where the things inside your head came alive…

The surface of the bath exploded, chains surged out of the water like raging serpents, and Kanji was on his feet and diving at the girl before the message could get from his ribs to his brain. In midair, the message finally hit, but determination and adrenaline were far stronger. He landed hard, pulling Kajiko down as the shackles whistled over their heads.

The girl's dazed expression had vanished. Survival instinct had kicked her reflexes into high gear. Lucky for her, Kanji supposed, as he rolled dazedly over onto his back, a red mist of agony filling his vision. He could hear Kajiko shout something…

"_Kanji!_" yelled the girl, seemingly from very far away. "Get outta the way—!"

The chains struck. More pain bloomed, sharper, more immediate, more directed. A disorienting sensation of movement, and then a sudden jolt against his back. Kanji groaned aloud. He felt something warm and wet trickle down his temple, which had to be blood.

"Kanji!" Kajiko screamed again. Her tone had changed; before it had been one of distress, and now it was shrill with sudden panic and terror. "Shit, no, g-get off—Kanji, _help me!_"

As Kanji creaked his eyes open, he saw many things happening at once. The room was… there was really no other word for it… the room was metamorphosing, unfurling like a grotesque butterfly and becoming darker, colder, grimier. The bath in the center remained through the changes, though, and its waters were raging.

But more alarmingly, Kanji saw that the chains had wrapped themselves around Kajiko, who was struggling in the center of the room, disheveled and furious. It didn't seem to matter how much she fought and raged and planted her feet in the ground and scrabbled at the floor. Slowly, inexorably, the chains dragged her towards the central bath, and the waters rose up to meet her. They covered her completely, muffling her last frantic cry of fury and terror, strangling the words in their cradle.

Kanji thought he heard a loud, wooden bang. He thought he heard a pattering of feet against the tiled floor, and he _thought_ he heard himself hoarsely yell, "_No!_ That's enough, dammit! Leave her alone!" but _surely_ he couldn't have, since his mouth hadn't opened and besides, he was too out of breath to muster up any sort of noise other than a grunt. He saw something small and dark rush towards him. _Huh?_ he thought stickily. _Table-chan—?_

The Table regarded the fallen boy with chilly calculation and then, quick as lightning, struck him hard over the head with the sledgehammer.

Kanji was too stunned to feel more than a whimper of betrayal as the last drop in his dwindling reservoir of hope dried up. Sparks burst across his vision, and he sorrowfully slipped into darkness.

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**Welp, that's it for today! Hope you enjoyed the massive agonizing cliffhanger I left with you there, so, well, tootaloo~!**


	11. I'll GIVE you something to accuse me of

**Author's Note: And this chapter is the one that I dub, "the one with all that KanNao in". The part where I begin using relationships to explore a person's psyche, in other words. (If you want to make it sound more reputable, that is.)**

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**#11: I'll GIVE you something to accuse me of**

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_ The past few days hadn't gone all that swimmingly for Kajiko Tatsumi. No, strike that – if 'swimmingly' was what the past few days weren't, they'd gone just about 'drowningly', with extra emphasis on the sinking._

_ That is to say, she was drowning._

_ Water filled her nose, burning like acid. She held her breath and struggled blindly against the chains that had engulfed her, feeling the world shrinking and rushing away, as if it was a ghost vanishing down a long and empty corridor in her mind's eye. She was scared, she was angry, her lungs were in a desperate agony—_

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_Days in the past, but not many…_

The landscape of Inaba, which normally looked so dry and dull, was vivid as a painting. There was music in the breeze as it wafted against Kajiko's cheek, the sun was like a song warming her skin, and all that other poetic garbage.

Okay, so basically she was paying very close attention for the first time in her life to pretty much anything, so as not to be caught out paying any sort of attention to the slim boy walking beside her. Because that would be bad. _Stay calm, Kajiko_, she told herself. _Be a goddamn cool cat for once in your life. Don't pay any mind to the mesmerizing mysterious youth who said he thought you were incredibly intriguing because look how frikkin' pretty everything else is… I mean damn, check out that tree, and that river, and this sky, and that silent way he walks with his cap tilted down and _holy freaking shit _is he _looking_ at me?_

She caught a glimpse of the his politely intense indigo gaze out of the corner of her eye and nearly jumped out of her skin. "So—" the boy began, and then tilted his head, a little confused by Kajiko's reaction.

"Yeah—huh?" Kajiko trembled. "R-right! S-so… what'd you wanna ask me about?"

"There's no need to rush through the formalities," the boy said placidly. "Tell me, has your past week or so been eventful?" He noticed the girl's bemused squint and added with a tiny smile, "That is to say, how have you been?"

Kajiko fast-forwarded through her memories of the previous week. "Uh. Been good, I guess. Nothin' too big happening."

The boy placed his fingertips together pensively. "So you wouldn't consider your altercation with the biker gang to be eventful, then?"

"I—oh… y-yeah, there was that, but…" Kajiko grimaced. Of course she was infamous now. All because she'd stood up to some dumb punks…

"Do such events occur in your life often?" persisted the boy. "Had you crossed paths with those miscreants prior to the incident?"

Kajiko noticed that he spoke very low, to compensate for the fact that his deeper adult voice hadn't really come in yet. Between this distraction and the fact that she was burning her processors trying to keep up with the boy's eloquent manner of speech, it was very hard to formulate prompt responses. "Uh… you mean… did I _know_ those guys?" She shook her head vehemently. "Hell no! I mean, I've seen 'em around… everyone has, right? Heard them, anyway, roaring up and down the streets on their lousy goddman noise machines. But I ain't ever hung out with 'em! I'm not part of that crowd."

"Then what prompted the fight?" the boy asked, rubbing his chin in thoughtful scrutiny of the girl at his right. "Had you been involved with anyth—"

"H-hey…" said Kajiko. "You sure this is the sort of thing you wanna talk about with me right now?" She scraped her shoe along the ground. The butterflies of giddy anticipation in her stomach had by now turned into heavy stones of anxiety. "I-I mean, I guess it was sort of a big deal but…"

"My apologies," said the boy, but he didn't sound very contrite. "I didn't realize this topic would upset you. As I said, I'm simply gathering information."

"Right," said Kajiko uncertainly. "I guess…" She was starting to regret this whole venture, and she wasn't entirely sure why.

She and the boy walked in silence for a time along the path by the riverbank. The wind stung in Kajiko's eyes, and she huddled deeper into her jacket. She was aware, once again, of being mentally dissected, but it put a flush to her cheeks for rather different reasons this time.

"L-listen, I swear I didn't go looking for those biker dudes," Kajiko suddenly blurted out. "I never met those guys before but my old man kept complain' about the noise… gave him headaches and things… so I figured the next time I saw those guys, I'd give 'em a good talking-to." She spread her arms pleadingly. "But the one night they did show up, and started buggin' me when I told 'em to lay off drivin' down our block... I didn't figure it'd go all violent, but they came after me and, well, and I showed 'em that I wasn't so easy to take down."

"Ah. So it was merely an act of loyalty and charity that drove you on?" inquired the boy. He sounded mildly disappointed, although Kajiko, blushing from perceived praise, didn't pick this cue up.

"Yeah! That's all!" she exclaimed. "I mean hey, if those assho—if those idiots on TV hadn't gotten the story wrong, then people'd be callin' me a hero by now!"

"Perhaps you're right," said the boy, rather distantly. His manner became even more detached and formal, if that was possible. "Well, this was a very informative discussion we had. I'm afraid I have urgent business to attend to now, however…"

"W-wait," stammered Kajiko. "You're leavin' already?" She bit her lip as the boy turned to head off. "See you around, then, I guess!" she called desperately. "But, uh… Listen, if you got more stuff you wanna ask me, y-you can do that anytime. I'm cool with that. Anythin' I can do to help, okay?"

The boy stopped in his tracks and glanced back over his shoulder. "Your cooperation is very much appreciated," he told Kajiko. "If I have any further questions, I won't hesitate to approach you."

Kajiko swallowed hard and looked down, scuffing gravel furiously. "O-or maybe next time we could just hang out—" When she glanced up, however, the boy had his back turned to her and was silently proceeding away from her down the block, by now out of earshot.

"Oh," mumbled Kajiko, disappointed. "You're gone. Right." She let out a heavy sigh and idly scratched the back of her head. "Walkin' off into the sunset all mysterious-like, huh? Sure, whatever suits you."

That could have gone a lot better, she reflected, as she turned away and started to skulk back home, but then it could gone much worse as well. He'd promised to meet her again if he had any more questions, hadn't he? That was a vaguely optimistic indicator of, well, something. Unless he'd just said that to be polite.

Sometimes Kajiko hated the way that she couldn't think before she spoke, because it meant that her words always came out very rough-sounding, and someone as cultured and well-spoken as that boy probably found it irritating. Kajiko had never had a good lid on her mouth. When her brain decided that something needed saying, it made her say it, and be damned to all the filters in between that should cut out the intercalations and colloquialisms and other speech patterns that made her sound like a total frigging 'tard.

The streets were almost, but not entirely empty today, though in a small town like this one there was never much bustle. Kajiko only saw a high-school-age couple crouched by a lamppost, bickering with their cell phones out over what sounded like a takeout order.

… hold on a sec.

Those kids were two of the group of four that had been hanging around outside Tatsumi Textiles the other day, weren't they? That had been the previous time she'd spoken with that mysterious boy, too. She'd called the kids out on it when she'd noticed them, and they'd promptly scampered off. Almost as if they _had_ been spying on her…

And now Kajiko was really starting to get pissed. Who did these jokers think they were, anyway? Just because someone got shown on TV more or less against their will – the censorship bar they put over her eyes hadn't done diddly squat, because there was only one girl in town who dressed like she did – didn't mean they were suddenly like a celebrity you could follow around and invade the privacy of.

Kajiko unzipped her jacket, marched over to the squabbling couple and stood over them, her hands on her hips. "The hell d'you think you're doin'?" she asked angrily. "You guys been followin' me or something'?"

The boy in the green shirt looked up and his eyes widened. At his side, the red-haired girl shot to her feet and giggled nervously. "What're you talking about?" she said, waving a hand in the air with frantically casual abandon. "We weren't following you! We're just a, a couple of lovebirds out a date!" She pulled the boy to his feet and vigorously threaded her arm around the crook of his elbow, clinging to him like he was a life preserver.

"Date!?" squeaked Green Shirt, going red. He stuffed his phone away. "Whaddaya mean, date? W-we're not dating, Yoshiko!"

"Shut _up_, Chiyuu…" muttered the girl, Yoshiko, warningly. "Let me handle this…"

"Yeah, well, you're lyin'!" snapped Kajiko, balling her fists. "I saw you guys outside the shop the other day, watchin' me! You think I'd forget somethin' like that?"

Green Shirt, or Chiyuu, as his name apparently was, gulped. "Okay maybe we were following you a little, but w-we just wanted to know—"

"If you've been up to anything, uh, _strange_, lately," finished the auburn-haired girl, trying to grin disarmingly but succeeding only in putting on a pained grimace. "Anything at all."

Chiyuu bobbed his head vigorously. "You can totally tell _us_," he said. "We're not, like, the police or something. Just a pair of concerned citizens, haha…"

At this, Kajiko's eyes bulged, and so did the veins on her neck. "_Strange?_" she squawked."Just what kinda bullshit are you accusin' me of!?"

"W-we're not accusing you of anything yet!" blurted Yoshiko hurriedly, and then clamped a hand over her mouth. "Uh-oh…"

"_Yet?_" growled Kajiko. "_YET!?_" She smacked her fist against her palm, finding herself in the throes of blind rage. "That's it! You two are _so friggin' dead!_"

This time, she wasn't about to let them get away. Kajiko charged after them as they turned on their heels and fled. Fear must have given them extra speed; normally she figured she'd catch up to them in no time.

"Keep runnin' and I'll _give_ you something to accuse me of!" she screamed after them. It occurred to her after she said this that it might not help her case. "W-wait! I didn't mean that! Don't you dare go spreading this shit around town, you hear! I ain't done nothin' wrong!"

"Yoshiko, come on!" yelped Chiyuu, his hand closing around the girl's wrist as he passed by her. "We have to get to the others before she catches up! Run faster!"

"I said _stop!_" yelled Kajiko fruitlessly, her legs windmilling into overdrive. "You think you can get away from me so easy!? Argh! Shit! Come back here!"

* * *

_That was then, and this was now._

_ A stream of bubbles escaped Kajiko's lips… there went all the air she had left, not that it could do her any good. The ghastly chains had tightened around her limbs so much that she didn't think she could feel them anymore, but her brain was so disoriented that it might have just gotten mixed up. A shout echoed in from above, but she couldn't hear it clearly because her ears were clogged with bathwater. She was falling; no, she was sinking, the square patch of light where the surface of the bath should be was shrinking fast—_

* * *

_An instant and an epoch ago_…

"That's right," said the boy, he of the blue hair and the blue cap and the blue jacket and the blue eyes. Even his voice was a kind of mellifluous blue, soft-spoken and mysterious like the night. "I find you incredibly intriguing."

No, not blue, _indigo_. The color of the most precious dyes that Kajiko's family owned. It was such a beautiful hue…

Kajiko knew her cheeks were flaming as the boy turned and left her. "He… finds me intriguing?" she mumbled to herself. "He's a guy, and I'm a _girl_, but he still finds me… intriguing? Wh-what kinda pick-up line is that, anyway?"

The kind of pick-up line that worked, apparently. No one ever gave a rat's ass about Kajiko Tatsumi. Not the way that she longed for. It had been so long since a guy actually treated her like she was as good as another guy, and for some reason that made her blush a lot more than being treated like a girl. He hadn't said she was cute, or hot, or anything demeaning like that. He'd said 'intriguing', like she was a puzzle to be pieced together, a seething fractal of complexity. An actual human being, in other words. Not just some dowdy wannabe-punk with an unofficial police record who could never get her life together.

Heh. Probably Kajiko had it all wrong, and was seeing meaning in nothing. But it still was something to hope on. Everyone needed a hope spot to pull them out of the rough patches in life, right…

* * *

_ That was then, and this was now… or was it the other way around?_

_ Dizzy and fading, Kajiko felt a pair of strong, firm arms around her shoulders, and her world lurched, no longer a descent but an ascent. The light was growing… was she dying? Was this the rosy light of Heaven, were these the arms of an angel? No way… she knew what Heaven-bound souls were supposed to be like and she sure as heck wasn't one of them. They only took _good_ girls, the ones who ate their veggies and attended school every day and didn't beat people up, right? But if she wasn't dying, then what…?_

* * *

_Once upon a time…_

Once upon a time, Kajiko's hair was long and black, and she didn't have piercings or a scar on her forehead. She was little then, running happily through the parks of Inaba, weaving sticks and wildflowers and rice husks together into all sorts of things. She made crowns and mats and sometimes little grotesque dolls with giant ears and an abundance of spidery limbs, that she would play at pitting against one another in gladiatorial arenas made from stones. Anything she found, there was something to be made from it. One day, she knew, she would weave the air and sculpt the sunshine and braid the lightning into fancy pleats that she could twine with her hair, but for now she was content with grass and bugs.

She remembered one time she had been crouched in the mud, happily stirring up the soil and plucking up stems, when a kamikaze plane had dive-bombed her. Not a real one, of course – it was actually a remote controlled Flying Featherman Ranger R Jet but she had been little enough that it might as _well_ have been a real plane, in her humble opinion. It had bowled her over, and sent her tumbling down a hill more out of surprise than pain, and she'd heard the fast thumping of the owner's tiny footsteps approaching her.

"I'm sorry!" a boy's voice squeaked. "I'm sorry, I just lost control of the app-apparatus!" Someone had knelt by her side and pulled her over, sniffling apologetically. "D-did I slay you?"

Kajiko had rolled over to stare into a pair of eyes that were the darkest shade of blue she'd ever seen. "Um," she'd said, completely confused and not caring one bit. "No, I'm okay…"

"I should have de-deducted from the manual that a height of one-fifty meters would be far away enough to lose the signal," said the boy, wiping his eyes.

"… 'kay…" Kajiko had said blankly, and had untangled herself from the toy. "Hey… Your robot's really cool." She'd flown it over her head, making _shooom, shoooom_ noises with her mouth. Then she had directed it downwards. "Neeeeeerrrww_… pcchhww._" She dug the nose of the plane into the dirt.

"What's that you're wearing?" the boy had eventually asked curiously. He'd pointed at Kajiko's head. "Did you… make that?"

Kajiko nodded eagerly and removed the crown. "Uh-huh. I used all kinds of flowers and beetles and—"

"Beetles?" gagged the boy. "You put beetles in your hair?"

"Only… only the died ones," explained Kajiko, blinking at what she considered to be an odd reaction. "Same with the, with the buttery flies. I find the died ones. They don't crawl around 'n stuff no more."

The boy looked at the flower crown with disturbed fascination. "Could you construct one for me, too?" he asked haltingly. "Please?"

"You don't need one," said Kajiko reasonably, "You have a hat." She pointed to the boy's head and then shyly added. "I… I like your hat. It's blue; I like blue."

"But I want one," the boy insisted. "I want one with all the bugs in it, too. It must be just like this one, with the same flowers. These are my specifications." He handed the flower crown back to Kajiko. "I shall pay you," he informed her magnanimously.

"You don't have to pay me," the girl told him, brimming with firm generosity. "I _like_ to make 'em. It's _fun_."

But soon after that, though they'd played for a time, the boy had been called away, and then he'd vanished like fog from her life. The flower crown she'd made for him wilted quickly, and within a week she'd thrown it out. At the time, she told herself that she'd make him a new one the next time they met. Within time, though, she'd forgotten all about it, and she had a scar on her forehead the next time she remembered. Girls with scars didn't wear flower crowns, she'd decided, even ones with bugs on. Besides, the boy probably wouldn't recognize her anymore, even if he did come back to Inaba, since she had a scar, and was ugly now.

* * *

_That was then, and this was—_

"Wake up, dammit!" someone growled. "Don't be such a… such a girl! What, you think you can just die now, without a fight! I never said you could die!"

The world was cold and damp. Kajiko wanted to shiver, but her whole body was entirely limp. She wanted to do as the voice said, but it was too difficult. She couldn't think, and without that, she couldn't tell her body what to do. So she lay on the stone floor, her head propped up on something low and flat, like a boxy pillow, letting the seconds drip from her face along with the bathwater that was saturating her clothes.

She felt someone slapping her cheeks, not to injure but to rouse, and she felt a little sorry that she couldn't respond to them, because they sounded so worried about her. That was nice. It was nice that someone cared.

The voice had returned, with a pleased, rather impressed tone. The panic in it was gone. It laughed, perhaps out of relief. "My, my… have you been carrying that around all this time? Well, you know what it's for, don't you? Good. Then I'll leave the rest to you, m'kay? Ta-ta for now…"

The sound of receding footsteps, and then something small and round, almost like a glass bead, was touching Kajiko's lips. It wormed its way into her mouth past her teeth all by itself and then burst on her tongue.

The world exploded into existence. Kajiko took a heaving lungful of air and then opened her eyes very, very wide.


	12. Let's lay low for now

**Author's Note: Going to be on vacation in an internet-less region for a couple of weeks - so updates are going to be a little slower, but I'm going to have plenty of time to write during my vacation, so that's going to be cool. I'll miss being able to check up on reviews every so often, so make sure to leave plenty so when I do go into an area with internet I may be pleasantly surprised :)**

**Here, have some more genderbent cast, while you get to know them and the ways that they are alike and different from the canon cast. Also, the alternate title of this chapter is "Attack of the Implied Love Triangle Which Is More Like a Sort of Mild Crush Square When You Get Right Down To It"****_._**

* * *

**#12: Let's lay low for now**

* * *

_Several days earlier…_

"There aren't enough chairs," murmured Yukihiro dazedly, rubbing his eyes. "We can't have a meeting without enough chairs for all of us…"

Chiyuu charged over to an adjacent empty table at the Junes food court and came back dragging an extra chair. He steered his friend into the seat. "Jeez, Yukihiro, you're really out of it today!" he said. "Did you get _any_ sleep last night?"

The black-haired boy shook his head. "N-no… I couldn't get to bed after the Midnight Channel aired." He frowned sadly. "I can't believe Kajiko still got kidnapped, even though we warned her."

"Y-yeah," said Chiyuu guiltily. "About that…"

Yoshiko stood up hastily. "Hey, Yukihiro-san, I could… fetch you some coffee if you want," she interrupted, with an ingratiating smile. "I'll pay for it!"

"Oh! That's very kind of you, Yoshiko-chan," Yukihiro said. "You don't have to buy it for me, though. It would be improper of me to—"

Yoshiko waved him off. "It's no biggie. I guess you can pay me back later somehow." She giggled. "Lemme treat you for once; you look like a walking corpse."

As the nicknamed 'Princess of Junes' dodged away through the tables of the food court, wrestling her wallet out of her pocket, the fourth member of the group looked up from the paper crane that she was folding from her napkin. "I suppose the only thing left to do is enter the TV and ask Kitty to look for her," said Yue. "We did all we could up until now."

"Y-you know, we didn't really…" Chiyuu poked at his beefsteak despondently. "We didn't really… get the chance to… well… warn her." He looked at Yue pleadingly. "It all went nuts before we could get to that part."

"Oh," said Yue. She blinked. "Why?"

"You better ask _Yoshiko_ about that," Chiyuu told her, fiercely attacking the steak with his fork. "She's the one who told me not to let on to Kajiko that we knew what was going on."

"Huh? Ask me what?" Yoshiko had returned with the coffee, which she slid across the table to Yukihiro before taking a seat. "Here you go, Yukihiro-san. On the house."

"You didn't want to warn Kajiko?" Yue asked her, confused.

Yoshiko twirled a finger around a strand of hair. Today, she had tied it into two short ponytails, one on either shoulder. "Y-yeah, I… I just wanted to be careful, y'know? I thought it would be a bad idea if certain people started to notice that we were really involved with all this."

"_Certain_ people?" Yue repeated, folding her hands in front of her. "I get the sense that you're theorizing again, Yoshiko. What's on your mind?"

The red-head laughed uncomfortably. "Y-you know me too well, Narukami," she admitted. "Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and… I _think_ I have an idea of what might tie all the victims together."

"Neat!" said Chiyuu, surprised. "Let's hear it!"

"I'm all ears," added Yukihiro, eagerly leaning in. "I've been thinking all this over too, but I couldn't come up with _anything_."

"Go ahead," Yue told her. "We're all listening."

"Well, I guess it all starts with the murderer, and I don't have a clue who he is yet, but…" Yoshiko stretched her arms behind her head, basking in the attention. "So let's say the murderer is up to something illegal. I figured something like drug running, you know?"

Yukihiro shivered. "How unpleasant! Why would you think that was something like _that_ was going on here in Inaba?"

"Because…" Yoshiko leaned in and lowered her voice. "Because let's say Kajiko Tatsumi was caught up in it somehow," she said. "She got real defensive when we asked her if she was 'up to something' and we know there's a possibility that she's involved in gang activity—"

"Yeah, but that was just a rumor!" protested Chiyuu. "Besides, the biker gangs around here are just a bunch of punks. I can't see them being organized enough to do all that!"

"Keep your voice down, Chiyuu!" hissed Yoshiko, wincing. "Tell the whole world, why don't you?" She rolled her eyes. "I _said _it was a theory, anyway! Just roll with it."

"How does that connect up with Mayoku Yamano and Sakito-senpai, though?" asked Yukihiro, obligingly bringing his volume down to a whisper. "I'm not following you here."

"I'm getting to that! Jeez!" Yoshiko spread her hands. "So, you guys remember how upset Kajiko was when that interviewer came over to her during that special report?"

"Yeah…" agreed Chiyuu, a light dawning. "She was all, 'Get bent!' And we know that Yamano had visited Kajiko's store for a tie, the same one we saw tied into a noose in that weird room. Do you think that maybe Yamano and Kajiko had _met_ with each other? Maybe they had an argument—?"

"We don't have any evidence for this yet, but… what if Yamano was doing some digging into this illegal thing that we're going to say was going on," continued Yoshiko. "It would make sense for him to be killed if he found something out, right?"

"That's true!" agreed Yukihiro. "And Sakito may have found something as well, since he was the one who discovered the body. Then it would also make sense for him to be the next victim! The murder's trying to cover up any leads on this operation."

"We don't even know if there _is_ an operation yet," Yue reminded them.

"I'm still not convinced," said Chiyuu. "Why would Kajiko be targeted if she'd on the killer's side?"

Yoshiko smiled, letting everyone know that she'd had an answer ready at hand for that question. "Because she was going to blab. She was talking to the police."

"Huh?' said Chiyuu. "How the heck would _you _know that?"

"That weird boy that she kept meeting with, remember?" Yoshiko said, as if this was obvious. "I know he was young, but he acted really official. He was asking her a lot of questions, and she looked pretty nervous about it. Almost like she was being _interrogated_, huh?"

Chiyuu was beginning to nod along. "So the killer's trying to get rid of anyone who might know about whatever he was up to?" He blinked and then scowled as something occurred to him. "Hey, wait a second! Why would he target _Yukihiro_, then? You trying to say _he's_ involved in all this?" Chiyuu leapt up from his seat and slammed his fists on the table. "Well you can forget all about that idea!"

"It's all right, Chiyuu," Yukihiro said, tugging on the sleeve of his friend's green sweater, trying to placate him. "I'm sure Yoshiko-san wasn't trying to imply anything."

"I wasn't!" exclaimed Yoshiko hastily. "I can't imagine Yuki-kun being caught up in anything _immoral_, haha… He's too nice!"

"Don't forget, the first victim was staying at the Amagi Inn," said Yue. "It's possible that the killer thought that Yamano had let something slip to Yukihiro."

They all looked over at Yukihiro Amagi, who turned a delicate shade of scarlet. "He never said anything to me about… about something like that!" he insisted. "Don't you think I would have told you all if he had?" He sat back, a little rattled, and swirled his coffee. "It does all seem to add up, but it's just speculation. It all hinges on the idea that Kajiko was involved with something illegal. I don't know if that's really the sort of person she is."

Exasperated, Yoshiko shook her head. "Come _on_, Yukihiro-san. Didn't you watch the Midnight Channel? You saw what her Shadow is like! '_My name is Kajiko Tatsumi and I just LOVE being bad?_'Just because she used to be all nice and cute when she was little doesn't mean she's still like that now. It's pretty clear that she's bad news."

"Well, are we all ready to go inside the TV and ask Kajiko herself?" asked Yue, standing up and pushing in her chair.

"I'm all in!" agreed Chiyuu, bounding to his feet and saluting. "Man, I've been waiting for you to say that!"

"Wait, wait, wait," Yoshiko said, pulling Chiyuu back down into his seat. "Hold on. What if that's what the killer's expecting us to do? He knows that _someone_ saved Yukihiro, but be probably doesn't know who yet. If we got rushing off the day after Kajiko got kidnapped, that could give us away! We want to stay one step ahead of him, don't we? I think we should lay low for a little while."

Chiyuu shook off Yoshiko's hold. "That's crap! We can't just wait around because we _think_ all this stuff is going on! We don't even know if Kajiko has anything to do with this! It could just be the killer going after people who show up on TV, like we figured before! You're saying we should just leave a fifteen-year-old girl inside the TV world for a little while because she _might_ have been guilty of something?"

"Well…" Yoshiko looked over at Yue pleadingly. "It's up to you to decide, really. You're our leader, aren't you? But I really don't think we should just… rush in to the TV world every time we get the chance to. We… we gotta be careful."

Yue studied the girl's expression and remembered what Yoshiko's Shadow had said. _I just came in here to have fun! I don't really care about finding out who killed Sakito-senpai; I just wanted to get some excitement out of this boring-ass town I got stuck with! I'd take any chance I can get to be the hero, huh?_

And Yue had been the only one to see these repressed inner feelings. No one else here had been privy to that secret.

"I think Yoshiko is right," she told the group, hoping that she wouldn't regret this decision. "Sorry Chiyuu, but we do have to be cautious about this. We'll have to wait a couple of days before entering the TV world."

The energetic, green-clad boy seemed to go limp with disappointment at this statement like a stalk of wilting grass. "I guess… You're the boss, Narukami." He bounced up on his toes again, trying to make the most out of this turn of events. "I'll be training the whole time, though! You guys can all join me if you want!"

"That sounds like a good plan," Yue said, smiling. "I think that would be fun."

"I'm sorry, Chiyuu, but I have to catch up on work for the inn for the next few days," said Yukihiro, patting his friend's shoulder. "I missed a lot while I was in the TV world, and then while I was recovering, so a lot of paperwork piled up."

"Sheesh…" Chiyuu said wonderingly. "They're really running you ragged, aren't they? Isn't there anyone else who could do all that work?"

"I'm the best at doing the math," Yukihiro ruefully told him. "Dad trusts me the most to do the budgets." He folded his arms and sighed. "I'm only doing it now because he's not going to get that kind of help once I leave the inn."

"I kinda have to help out around Junes a lot," admitted Yoshiko. "We're getting new shipments of produce today, and you know you gotta stock that stuff fast before it goes back." She winked. "Guess it's just gonna be you and Narukami alone together at training, huh?"

Yue went a little pink at the idea, but Chiyuu didn't notice this, and he huffed, "Yeah, I guess so. Why're you making a big deal about it? I don't mind if you two have things you gotta do. I totally get that you've all got jobs and stuff."

"Oh, nothing," said Yoshiko innocently, gathering up the group's plates and cups. When she reached Chiyuu's place she hissed into his ear, "It's still just between the two of us, isn't it?"

"You are _so_ weird sometimes, Yoshiko," the boy grumbled. "Okay, Narukami, let's head outta here."

But the group lingered for a little while, exchanging small talk, a little unwilling to return to their chores. It was only after a couple of store employees noticed Yoshiko and pulled her off to work that the rest of them finally were able to break up the meeting and go their separate ways. Chiyuu eagerly towed a somewhat blushing Yue off, aiming for the Samegawa riverbank, the choice spot for training in his opinion.

"You sure that Yoshi-chan's got the right idea about this?" Chiyuu asked doubtfully, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "If Yukihiro thinks that Kajiko isn't the sort of person to do anything illegal, then I guess I got to trust him on that. He's the only one of us who knows her at all." He bit his lip and then said, "I know you sided with him but… You figure maybe Yoshiko just needed to blame someone for what happened to Sakito Konishi?"

"That's exactly what I think," Yue said, unexpectedly.

"Whaaaat?" exclaimed Chiyuu. "So why'd you go along with her?"

"I think it's important for Yoshiko to feel that she's really doing this because she wants to help people," Yue carefully explained. "And I get the sense that she needs to take those few days before going into the TV world again."

"I _guess_," Chiyuu said, pulling a face. "Even though that doesn't really make sense, it sort of does when you say it. And she did call me up after the Midnight Channel aired. She sounded pretty freaked out. I mean, the other Kajiko on that show was pretty, uh, out there, but it's weird that Yoshiko would be really bothered by it." He was bouncing back and forth on his tiptoes again, revving himself up for training.

"Everyone does have things that they have to face up to, things they don't want to admit, right?" said Yue. "That's how the TV world works."

"Didn't Yoshiko already face her other self, though?" Chiyuu asked. "She had to have, to get her Persona." He leaned closer. "So…uh… what was it like?"

Yue serenely bowed her head.

"I guess you're not really going to tell _me_," admitted Chiyuu. "Figures. I… kinda want to figure out what's going on with that chick." He sighed. "She's so silly sometimes, such a goof, but then others she gets all serious, you know? Like she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders… you do that too sometimes, but I mean Yoshi-chan takes it to both extremes."

Yue noticed the faraway look in the boy's eyes and felt a flicker of jealousy. She wasn't about to let the flicker become a twinge, or even a pang, however. Chiyuu and Yoshiko had known each other before Yue showed up, after all, so it was only fair to give them a chance first. They did argue quite a lot, but perhaps that was all part of it.

"Well, anyway, let's get training!" said Chiyuu cheerfully, and high-kicked. "Take that, Shadow scum! Hii-YAH!"

"I don't think I can do that, but I'll try," said Yue, and dutifully drew herself into a fighting stance. "Let's see… left foot here, right foot goes up…"

"Why don't we start with throwing punches?" said Chiyuu after watching this with some interest. He laughed. "So everyone in the movies always stands sorta like this… And then they…" He demonstrated.

"Ah. I can do that," agreed Yue, shifting her weight. "I can definitely do that."

"Okay, cool, now you try throwing a punch at me and I'll try blocking it," said Chiyuu, oblivious to the steely glint that had formed in Yue's eyes. "Ready… one, two, three…"

After Chiyuu had picked himself off the ground and dusted his jacket off, coughing, he nodded. "Yeah, that was… that was pretty good," he grunted. "Right to the stomach… Didn't really expect you to aim there…"

"I'm so sorry," said Yue contritely. "I didn't realize I would knock you over." Perhaps she _had_ allowed the flicker to become a twinge after all, though now it was more someone else's twinge than her own.

Her time in the TV world had certainly heightened her reflexes, a lot faster than it should have. Still, their fighting skills in the real world would always be nothing compared to the Shadow realm, and that wasn't even counting Persona power, but Chiyuu seemed to feel that it was worthwhile training over here. Perhaps it made it easier for him to handle letting time be chiseled away if you occupied yourself. Yue felt she was beginning to understand Chiyuu a little more.

"Yeah, it's all good," said the boy hoarsely, thumping his chest. "I like your style there. Very good balance."

Yue bowed deeply. "Thank you… Sensei."

"Aw, shaddup…" Chiyuu grinned sheepishly. "Don't… don't say things like that so seriously. It makes people think you really mean it or something!"

Yue merely settled back and prepared to try another punch.

* * *

**Oh, and don't forget to ****_follow_**** this story if you want constant updates (even though I just said updates were going to be less frequent for the next few weeks so it's a moot point).**


	13. I can't forget what you did

**Author's Note: Hey guys, posting from the little smidgen of wifi I'm able to catch up here! Enjoy the chapter ^u^**

* * *

**#13: I can't forget what you did**

* * *

Wincing and rubbing her aching limbs, Kajiko crawled off the floor to her hands and knees. The box her head had been resting on, as it turned out, had been the Laughing Table, who shuffled its three feet.

"Th-thanks, Table-chan," Kajiko mumbled, her heart rather warmed by this display of care. "Hey, how'd you wake me up? What was that thing you gave me, anyway?" The Table showed her a goblet and its contents, and then tentatively reached out its floating hand. Kajiko, clasping the Table's palm, was rather surprised when the hand firmly levitated upward and pulled her to her feet.

She took a good look at her surroundings, because it certainly wasn't the bathhouse anymore, although one bath was still sitting innocently in the center of the room. Her new location was still frighteningly familiar. It was her old prison facility. Hello, again, to drafty halls and dingy barred windows, to indecipherable scrawl on the walls and broken chains in the corners. She shied away from them, reminded of her recent close brush with death.

"Wait… where's Kanji?" asked Kajiko. "I gotta thank that dude for pullin' me outta there." She racked her brains. "I mean, I _think_ it was him… but who else could it have been, anyway?"

"Coulda been _me_," said a familiar distorted male voice from behind her.

Kajiko spun around, suddenly furious. "_You!?_ What the hell—!"

Kanji's Shadow minced forward out of the gloom and then bowed Western-style, with an elegant twirl of his hand. "At your service, Lady-Kanji," he drawled. "You're very welcome."

"Hrmph," said Kajiko bitterly. She turned away and began to fiercely squeeze the water out of her jacket. "I ain't singin' your praises just yet."

"Oh, don't be _like_ this again!" complained the Shadow. "A few seconds ago you were saying how you were going to thank me! What happened to that?" He trailed after her as she paced the room. "So _ungrateful_, as usual…"

Kajiko gnashed her teeth together. "Who the hell are _you_ callin' ungrateful?" she snarled through them.

Shadow Kanji stretched like a well-oiled, smooth-skinned cat, every one of his well-defined chest muscles rippling. "What_ever_," he said, rolling his eyes. "I can't _believe_ you're still gonna make a big deal about that _witty bitty _fight we had."

"Not really gonna forget about the time you tried to _murder me_. And _then _you were a total bitch about it. So, yeah. We ain't friends." Kajiko clapped her hands. "Now c'mon, Table-chan! Let's go find Kanji… the _real_ one."

"Don't know if that would be such a good idea," sang Shadow Kanji, running a finger along the windowsill and then wrinkling his nose. "Oh, my… such _filth_ in this place… I'd say it needs a woman's touch but since it came out of _your_ head—"

"And why wouldn't finding Kanji be a good idea?" demanded Kajiko, shouldering the Table, who had eagerly jumped onto its place on her back.

"Well, for one thing, he could be just _anywhere_ in here…" Shadow Kanji tried to peep through the windows and then turned away in disgust. "But for another…" He giggled. "Who knows what could happen to me if he wakes up again? I might not be able to hold myself in… I might go _completely _out! Of! _Control…!_ Whoo!" Shadow Kanji flexed and spun around with a flourish, sending a wave of rose petals and sparkles out through the room.

The room, which was now completely empty. The door on the end of the room was swinging shut. "Huh?—Shit!" Shadow Kanji straightened his towel and then raced for the exit before it latched. He got his foot in and then yelped as the heavy door jammed shut on his big toe. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" He hopped out, clutching his foot. "Yo! Lady-Kanji! Didn't you hear me! I said he could be _anywhere!_"

"The _name_ is _Kajiko_, and I'm _not_ waiting up for you!" The girl's voice wafted down from the end of the dimly lit hallway, along with the echoing patter of her receding footsteps. "Go back to your own damn world!" She turned a corner, and then a door squeaked open and slammed, cutting off the sound of the girl's feet on the stone floor.

"Nonono… Stop that! Kajiko! Come back here!" Shadow Kanji sprinted down the hall and then floundered as he met with a fork in the corridor. "Oh, you're _so_ going to die if you keep this up! Now which way did you go? Left or right? Let's see… eenie meenie miney m—oh crap! Nope, nope, wrong way!" He bolted out of the rightmost room and hastily shut the door on the lunging blob of darkness. "Now they're attacking me, too!?" he moaned. "Stupid frikkin' Shadows… Could this day get _any _worse? Well, left it is!"

The left door took him down another hallway, and when he rounded a bend, he nearly ran straight into Kajiko. She turned and glared venomously at him. "Go _away!_"

"Why?" asked Shadow Kanji, a little grumpily. "You… you really don't want me around?"

"Hell no!" said Kajiko promptly. "You're annoying, you're untrustworthy, and you're underdressed. Also, I'm goin' to find the _real_ Kanji, and you're gonna set him off or he's gonna set you off… whatever! It's a bad combination. So _leave_ already!"

Shadow Kanji leaned forward and shook the girl by her shoulders, his yellow eyes wide. "You're. Going. To _diiiee_," he said slowly and deliberately. "In fact, it's a miracle that you haven't already! If you just go _running_ _off_ though this place without backup, you're _so_ going to get swallowed up by your Shadow self and—"

"Oh, would you _get off me?_" snapped Kajiko, elbowing the boy away. "Some frikkin' personal space would be nice!"

"My goodness, Kaji-chan, you're just plain naïve," said the other Kanji, putting his hands on his hips. "You really think that you and that little Laughing Table can take on all the Shadows that will be crawling out to get you?"

The girl backed away down the hall. "Yeah, pretty much! I can outrun them and if one gets too close, well… I'll smash it with a hammer!" She pointed behind her. "_That_ hammer, in fact. That one." The Table obediently floated the sledgehammer around in front of the girl and she grasped its handle. By now it was a long, thick, and robust weapon, almost ludicrously oversized, having fully completed its transformation from a thin and innocent stick.

"Sheesh, honey…" snorted Shadow Kanji. "Compensating for something, ah, _missing_ there?"

"Huh? The hell does that mean?" Kajiko swung the hammer in front of her a few times and then tossed it back over her shoulder. "Look, I'm sure it's real cute that you're all _worried _about me now, but guess what? I don't need your damn worry!"

"I am _not_ worried about you," said Shadow Kanji, pursing his lips. He hugged his chest and stamped his feet a little to warm up as he followed Kajiko down the hall. "I just don't know what _do_ here all alone. It's all _cold_ and _dry_ and… and sad…"

A pause. Kajiko drew to a halt and let that sink into her brain. "_Sad_," she repeated, turning around. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

Shadow Kanji looked away innocently. "Oh, you know… this place isn't very _nice_, is it? And it all did come from _your _mind. _My_ place was warm and accommodating, at the very least. Whatever that says about the things you're hiding…"

"Your place was sketchy as shit, too," Kajiko told him. "At least my world isn't pretending to be otherwise."

"_Sketchy?_ I'm offended! It was a perfectly legitimate establishment!" Shadow Kanji pouted. "I'd hoped you wouldn't be as _rigid_ about these things, but apparently you're as bad as all the rest…"

"Didn't let any _girls_ in," muttered Kajiko resentfully.

Shadow Kanji covered his eyes. "That was the whole point! It was supposed to be _Man's _World, not Everybody and Their Mother's World! It was a place…" He sighed. "Where _certain_ people could just be themselves. What's so shady about that?"

"Well… I think girls would want a chance to be themselves, too?" said Kajiko, a little confused but slightly hopeful. "I mean if that's all you want, then why—"

"But I don't _like_ girls!" blurted out the Shadow. "_That's_ how I'm being myself! Come _on_, Kaji-chan, do you seriously not get it yet? I'm—"

"Then I don't like you back!" Kajiko huffed, spinning on her heel and marching away. "So the feeling is very, _very_ mutual! No go be yourself somewhere else!"

"Wait… no, that's not what I meant! It's not _that_ kind of 'liking', it's the other kind…"

"Oh, _really?_" said Kajiko furiously. "You don't mean that, huh? Weird, since "I _hate_ girls" is _practically the first thing you said to me._" She shook him off. "Ugh! I'm outta here!"

"Wait, wait wait…" Shadow Kanji rushed after her. "You can't just—"

Kajiko froze. In the center of the next hall, a large Shadow was coalescing, coming out of the floor and oozing into shape, bulging and growing in size like a massive black tumor dragging itself along the ground.

"Crap…" whispered Kanji's other self. "Just back away quietly…"

"Now we gotta be real quiet," whispered Kajiko, her hammer at the ready. "Gonna see if I can't surprise this one before it—"

"What!?" hissed Kanji's Shadow. "No! You see the _size_ of that thing? Get out while you still can!"

Kajiko ignored him and tiptoed forwards, raised her hammer high, and then brought it down with a yell, channeling all the power and might of a steel-driver. The startled Shadow flew apart into three separate blobs, which all began to float and take on a more cogent shape. When their transformations were complete, they rolled over and blew raspberries Kajiko's way.

"_Pthhbbpppttt_," said the three round, stripy blobs, with their wide mouths and fat tongues.

"Forgotten Hableries…" Shadow Kanji hissed in Kajiko's ear. "You are _sooo_ _stupiiiidd_…"

The girl bristled. "You sayin' I can't take 'em on?" Kajiko hefted the hammer. "All right, you… you spitty mouthy things! Come and get me!"

The three Hableries bobbed uncertainly, and then the first one swooped forward and lashed out with its tongue. Kajiko leaped up to meet it and swung hard. The hammer struck and sank into the spongy flesh, sending the Shadow hurtling backwards.

"C'mon, c'mon, _c'mon!_" cheered Kajiko, whirling the sledgehammer in a circle at her side. "Baaaaatter _up!_ Who wants a taste'a me next?"

The Shadows seemed to exchange glances (though they had no eyes), and then they all rushed forwards, coming in from the sides and overhead. Kajiko tensed herself and then bounded backwards at the last second. The three Hableries bashed into one another and flew apart, dizzy.

The hammer was tugging forwards in Kajiko's hand. It pulled her arm in a couple of tentative arcs, as if tracing out a path. "What're you tryin'a say, Table-chan?" asked Kajiko. "Wait, wait, _what—!?_" As the first of the Hableries recovered and darted forward, the hammer swung back and then threw itself right out of Kajiko's grip. It tumbled through the air and struck the spherical Shadow, then zoomed back into the girl's hands.

"Oh man that is… that is _so awesome!_" squealed the girl. "It's like that, that thunder god guy, with the hammer, and it always comes back to—that… that is _so awesome!_" She whooped. "Sweet _move_, Table-chan! Let's get goin', huh?" Kajiko lifted up the hammer and then took aim at the nearest Hablerie. "Gonna kick your ass, big spitty thing! If you even have an ass… I guess you're kinda like half an ass with a mouth, actually. So! It still counts!" And she threw the hammer with all her strength.

Shadow Kanji had been backing up the whole time, trying to stay out of the way of this battle. He wasn't going to stoop so low as to fight for her, was he? He'd saved her once already, so she owed him, not the other way around, right? He had to admit, though, she was pretty badass with that hammer out there… he could respect that.

Something large and wet smacked against his rear end and slobbered its way up his bare back. Shadow Kanji shrieked, stumbled around, and found himself face to face with one of the Forgotten Hableries, which had snuck up behind him.

It panted heavily and stuck its tongue out at him. "_Pthhbbpppttt_," it said.

"Did you just _lick_ my—?" squeaked Shadow Kanji, frantically wiping said body part and coming back with a handful of slime. His face reddened and his voice cracked up yet another octave. "W-well, _don't!_ D-don't you frickkin' dare! Ew! Icky!"

He flapped his hands in front of him, and a bolt of electricity crackled down from the ceiling, squarely striking the Hablerie and knocking it to the ground. "Get _bent!_" the boy shouted, then swiftly raised his fist once again and pummeled the floor, sending out a shockwave and a storm of lightning in every direction.

Two of the bolts hit the floating Shadows and sent them sprawling, and one sliced right through the already downed Hablerie, turning it into a cloud of black mist. But Kanji's other self was too busy trying to wring the slime off his hands to care. "Oh my _gawd_," he kept blubbering. "I feel so… so _unclean!_" Thankfully, after the Hablerie disappeared, its slime seemed to follow suit, albeit at a slower pace.

"Yo! Man up a little!" said Kajiko, backing past him with her hammer at the ready. She snickered. "What, so you _don't_ like it when people lick your butt?"

"N-no," whimpered the Shadow boy, shuddering. "Not anymore…"

"Good," said Kajiko. "So ya learned somethin'. Now do you mind doing that lightning thing again? I feel like conserving my strength right now."

"Oh, just go hit 'em again," grumbled the Shadow boy. "They're weak to electricity, so your hammer should finish 'em off."

"Weak to…? Huh. Well, whatever you say." The girl rushed at the closest one, which was feebly rolling on the floor with its tongue lolling. One blow from the hammer burst the Forgotten Hablerie into shreds of smoke.

"That's what you get for mouthin' off at me, punk," Kajiko said, and then waited. "_Mouthin'_ off at me? Get it? Oh, never mind…" After banishing the last one, she faced Shadow Kanji. "Anyway, what's gotten _into_ you, dude? You can't really be that squeamish."

The other Kanji squirmed and hid his face. "Tch… no comment."

"I can't believe you're such a… such a…" Kajiko struggled for words.

"Wuss?" finished the Shadow mournfully.

"No! That's not… I mean you kinda are, but you took out those Habbly-whatsits." Kajiko grinned sheepishly. "Such a _kid_ was what I was going to say. You go on an' on about manhood, but you're not old enough to be called a man in the first place, and half the time, you don't even act it. 'S weird."

The boy looked up, his eyes going wide, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"C'mon, Kanji," said Kajiko, shaking her head ruefully. "You're only fifteen. People our age don't know what we are, and we get all worried thinkin' we're the _wrong_ sort of person, but… ain't it normal just to be… who we are? Which, when you get down to it is… children? There's no wrong way to be—I guess just do whatever comes natural to you."

Tears wobbled in the corners of Shadow Kanji's eyes. "R-really? You mean you don't… are you sure you…?" He reached over and slung an eager arm around Kajiko's shoulders, pulling her down to a seat on one of the low windowsills. "You know, I really thought I _hated_ you," he said wonderingly.

"D-do you _mind?_" muttered Kajiko, trying to wriggle away. "Personal space, dude?"

"I blamed you for everything that was going on in my world," Kanji's Shadow continued, pretending not to hear her. He gazed off into the distance. "And I'm _sorry_ about that. I can't forget what you did. You're the second person who ever treated me like I was normal."

Kajiko hunched her shoulders, trying to squeeze out of the Shadow's grip. "Uh. You're welcome," she muttered. "Who… was the first?"

The other Kanji slowly folded his hands on his lap, and a dreamy look took shape in his eyes. "You mean _him_," he said, and giggled. "Oh, my… I can't even _talk_ about him without getting all… all goosebumpy!"

"You sure it ain't 'cause of the cold?" asked Kajiko. She stood up, reminded of something. "Hey, you sure you don't want…?" And then she decided it was silly to ask, and she unzipped her coat and draped it over Shadow Kanji's shoulders.

"There," she said. "It looks… interesting on you, but I hope it's warm."

"I like the cut," smirked Shadow Kanji. "Very…mhm… _flattering_ to my hips."

"Yeah, it's a _girl's_ coat," Kajiko told him, laughing. "Well, sort of. It didn't use to be, but then I—"

"I can tell," said the boy, pulling his arms through the sleeves. "I noticed it right away. The tailoring on this piece is simply _magnificent_."

"R-really?" stuttered Kajiko. "Ya think so?"

"Oh, I _know_ so," said Kanji's Shadow. And he smiled, a genuine smile for the very first time that Kajiko could remember. It was a nice smile, actually. The only time she could remember seeing that smile was in photographs of when she was young.

"We… we gotta get goin'," she told him gruffly. "I want to find your other self. Just wanna be sure he's okay, y'know?"

Shadow Kanji clasped his hands together hopefully. "D'you… d'you think he'll _accept_ me?" he asked her.

Kajiko sighed. "Maybe, dude. I don't know. I guess if you ask him nicely. Explain how it is. He ain't a bad guy."

The other Kanji let Kajiko drag him to his feet by his wrist. "Well, don't get too used to bein' alive," he told her, playing idly with the pockets on the coat. "You do get that the next Shadows we meet might not even _be_ weak to anything we can throw at them…"

"Well, no worries! We got Table-chan on our side, and she knows all sorts of magic! I've seen her burn things and freeze things and… and…" Kajiko touched her shoulder, strained an arm around to touch her unburdened back, and then spun on her heel. "Table-chan? _Table-chan? _I… She must have jumped off after I got done with those Shadows but… Wh-where'd she go?"

The Laughing Table had vanished.

* * *

But in another section of the prison altogether, a blob of darkness slipped out of the wall and shaped itself into a three-legged table, clothed by a red checkered cover with a blue mask. Three objects were spinning in lazy circles above its surface.

Hobbling along in its crippled way, the Table unsteadily made its way along the hall, then poked its face through an open door. It moseyed through and nearly tripped over a fallen young man lying prone on the floor. A tiny rush of air blew through the mouth on its mask, as if the Table was trying to speak. It hugged the wall and made a sweep of the room, then wrestled a long knife – almost a sword, really – out of the door at the other end.

The Laughing Table then cantered over to the injured boy's head. It froze its items in their orbits and spread them out in a floating row, its disembodied hand flitted from one to the other, lingering on first a ball full of static, next the sword, before finally diving into a chalice and pulling out a pinch of what appeared to be tiny glowing beads, which it pressed past the boy's lips.

The world, for Kanji, anyway, exploded into existence.

He groaned and rubbed his skull. It felt like he had a bad hangover, or at least what he _thought_ a bad hangover felt like, though he hadn't ever come near to alcohol in his life, since his Ma would have been quite disappointed with him if he had. Still, his limbs had a little bit less of an ache to them, and for some reason he felt no pain in his chest. Why was that odd?

Oh, right, because he'd just gotten kicked in the gut by a ten-foot gladiator. He remembered _that_ all too well. But hadn't he broken a couple of ribs? Why didn't he feel them anymore?

Movement caught the corner of his eye, and he jerked back. "_You_…" he growled. The memories were flooding in thick, and he recalled the last moments before darkness had hit. "What the _hell_ was that for, ya stupid Table? You want me to kick you in the face or somethin'? Why'd you hit me like that?"

The Laughing Table shook itself out and then bowed low, its mask face down on the floor in apparent contrition. It bent the cup towards Kanji, showing him the contents.

"Wait… what are those bead things?" The boy ran his tongue along his teeth. "Huh. Is that what you gave me? To wake me up?"

The Table bobbed up and down. A nod.

"Aw, shit," grumbled Kanji. "I can't stay mad at you, can I? Just don't do it again, you hear? Don't pull that crap without warning me."

The Table picked itself up and its surface – what passed for its shoulders – shivered with what looked like mirth. It then pattered happily over to Kanji, who shuffled away from it, his eyes widening when he noticed the long knife. "Whoa… that musta been what Kajiko was talkin' about before. Where'd you… where'd you get that?"

In response, the Table ruffled its cloth and innocently dropped the sword behind it. _What, this old thing?_

The boy rubbed his eyes and squinted upwards. "Dammit… where the hell are we now?" He rose unsteadily to his feet and peered at the room. "This place feels like some kinda prison. How'd we get from the bathhouse to _here?_"

Kanji walked to the other end of the room and tried the door, noticing the fat slice through the lock and wondering at it. It swung open with a squeak after a couple of hard tugs.

The room beyond was quite tall, with a central stage at the far end. The windows were higher as well, though they were so dusty that the silvery light they let through was barely enough to see by.

And at the other end, a figure was huddled on the floor, weighed down by heavy chains and manacles that draped over its body.

Recognition rushed through Kanji's mind, and he rushed towards the prisoner. "_Kajiko!_ Oh my god…You okay there? I thought… I thought you were a goner! I'm so glad you're—"

The girl slowly lifted her face.

"Hey…" murmured Kanji, skidding to a halt. "What the hell happened to you?"

She bared her teeth – calling it a smile would be misleading somehow. "Yo-_yo_," she said. "'Sup, Kanji-kun?"

Her voice did not sound fully human; it was layered with echoes and reverberation. And her eyes, which were sunken in shadow, were a pale, glowing yellow. A bruise-colored aura wreathed her body.

"H-huh?" said Kanji, taking a faltering step forwards. "Is… is that you, Kajiko?"

Clanking, the girl stood up. "Of _course_ it is," she said in her uncanny not-quite-normal voice. "I am Kajiko… and Kajiko is me."


	14. If I can't be Good, then I'll be Bad

**Author's Note: Please, please, please, please, please review!**

* * *

**#14: If I can't be Good, then I'll be Bad**

* * *

"_You're_… Kajiko…?" said Kanji incredulously. "What…?"

The chains fell off the girl's shoulders and slipped to her ankles, revealing her bare arms and midriff. She was clothed in rather skimpy black leather with spiked bracelets and a matching choker. Piercings poked out of every possible corner – her eyebrow, her lower lip, her navel – in addition to the familiar locations that she and Kanji shared.

Below her neck, her skin was almost solid black with the print of countless interlaced tattoos, which were wrinkled in many places by long, ropy scars. The places where her pale skin shone through were shaped like an overlay of bones, so when seen in the darkness out of the corner of the eye, she appeared to be a skeleton.

She was almost like a wicked caricature of what someone who only vaguely knew Kajiko might have envisioned. "You ain't her!" Kanji snarled. "What are you? Some Shadow playin' make-believe? I know what you freaks get up to!"

"Yeah, an' who do _you_ think you are, punk?" the Shadow girl snarled, her mouth twisting with fury. She threw out her arms and shoved Kanji backwards.

Kanji tripped over and fell flat. "Ow! The hell was that for?"

Shadow Kajiko stood over him and planted her foot on his chest. "Aw, who cares?" she shrugged. "You were just pissin' me off. You come into my territory and talk shit to me, I teach you a lesson. Got that?" The toe of her boot dug into Kanji's windpipe. "I said, _you got that?_"

The boy turned crimson with anger and forced the girl's leg off his throat. "I don't gotta listen to _anything_ you say," he said, jumping to his feet. "And there's no way in _hell_ that you're Kajiko! She ain't like you!"

Shadow Kajiko's eye twitched, and she reached in her pocket. Kanji swung his fist before her hand could come out with what it was rooting around for – he'd seen that move plenty of times and he didn't want to be on the bad end of a set of _those_. But the Shadow was faster than he was. She caught his punch with her free hand and twisted his arm around, then let loose with the other fist.

Kanji felt a ghost of pain from the brass knuckles before they even hit, but it was nothing compared to when they smashed against the side of his face. The Shadow had inhuman strength as well, which only made it worse, and she managed to get in a kick to his shins before he wrenched his arm from her grip.

"Shit…" grunted Kanji, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. "You're going to friggin' pay for that!"

The Shadow girl's hands flew behind her back and emerged whirling a blackjack. "Ya think?" she sniggered. "Let's see you try! C'mon, man, I've been waitin' for a good fight for _sooo_ long!"

How many weapons was she carrying around? "Oh yeah? Well, then bring it—argh!" Something hit Kanji's back and swung onto his shoulder. "Huh? T-Table-chan?"

Cloth brushed by his ear as the Laughing Table flung its knife at the Shadow girl, aiming straight for her throat.

The Shadow's yellow eyes glinted and her hand flashed forward. In the next second, the knife had halted in midair, and the Shadow girl's fist had closed around the blade. Dark blood dripped from her palm and sizzled on the floor.

Kanji gulped. "Shit… Wait, Table-chan, don't—!" The Laughing Table, seeing that its first assault had failed, leaped off the boy's shoulder and galloped to attack. "_Stop!_" shouted Kanji. "Look _out!_"

It was too late to warn it, though. The Table had already leaped, and Shadow Kajiko had her bleeding hand around the handle of the knife. She sliced it in front of her and something thin and black parted from the Table and flew away. The Table hit the floor, wobbled, and then collapsed forward, unable to stand.

It had been the second of the Table's front legs.

Kanji was choking on fury at this point, and he didn't know why he couldn't get his feet to move. "You… you… you little…"

Shadow Kajiko next swung the blackjack at her side, and then smashed it down, pinning the now two-legged Table to the floor. Its inventory fell out of the air. Blue sparks spat out of the sphere that it had been carrying when it struck the Table's surface, and Shadow Kajiko's eyes zeroed in on it.

"You carried _that_ around with you?" she said, gloating. "When you're weak to lightning? You really are one crazy-ass Table!" And she raised a foot and stamped hard on the Table's surface, grinding her heel into the ball of electricity and smashing it into splinters.

The electricity trapped in the sphere burst out like sparks from a forge. It wreathed the Laughing Table, who writhed under Shadow Kajiko's heel, its two remaining legs jerking and flopping helplessly. Curls of smoke began to spiral up from its smoldering cloth.

"You _bitch!_" Kanji roared, finally coming unglued from his frozen state of horror. He charged forward and threw the Shadow girl back against the wall. "I'll kill you for that!"

Shadow Kajiko spat in his face and then jerked her knee up.

Kanji folded over, grunting in agony. His eyes watered. "Ngh… Motherf—"

"Yeah… how d'you like that?" said Shadow Kajiko, popping the air in her knuckles and smirking. "It always cracks me up how you big tough _men_ cry like babies after one good hit between the legs. Pathetic!"

Kanji levered himself upright. "You're… you're crazy," he mumbled, gathering up the limp Laughing Table and sadly running a finger over the frayed hem of the cloth. "Yo, Table-chan… you okay…?" The Table's remaining attached arms clung to Kanji's neck. Its frame was shivering.

The Shadow girl dropped the knife to the floor. "I just _hate_ that thing," she said, glaring at the Laughing Table. "I'm glad it attacked me."

Kanji clutched the crippled Table tighter to his chest. "You… Table-chan… _why?_"

"That Table shouldn't even _exist_, man," the Shadow girl said harshly. "Some idiot put a piece of human longing in it, and that idiot was me. Kajiko did it. She made it into a part of herself."

"So why d'you hate it… _her_ so much?" demanded Kanji. "What'd she ever do to you?"

"It thinks it's better'n me," whispered Shadow Kajiko. "It thinks it knows what it's like to be Kajiko Tatsumi better'n I do, but it's _wrong!_ I ain't some pathetic loser who'll follow around the first person to treat me nice! I live on my own damn terms!"

"I still don't get it. You Shadows don't make no frikkin' sense sometimes." Kanji turned his body away, protectively hiding the Table from the other Kajiko's yellow stare.

Shadow Kajiko tapped the blackjack against her thigh impatiently. "What the hell are you waiting for?" she demanded. "Don't you wanna get revenge on me? Don't you wanna make me _pay?_ Come and fight me already! _Do_ it!"

Kanji weighed his options and then held out his hands. "Okay," he said, breathing hard as he attempted to contain his anger. "You know what? I don't really wanna fight you anymore. Ya look too much like her, anyway. It wouldn't feel right."

"You'd hit somethin' that looked like _you_, though, wouldn't you?" snarled Shadow Kajiko. "So just 'cause I'm a _girl_, you won't—"

"That ain't it!" Kanji snapped. "I just don't feel like fightin' any more of you things!" He clenched his fists in frustration. "I'm sick of this whole Shadow-self shit! The Kajiko _I _know doesn't beat people up without a damn good reason, and… and neither do I! So where's the Kajiko _I_ know?"

The Shadow raised a pierced eyebrow. "Hell if I know," she grumbled, sounding irritated. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette, which she lit with a snap of her fingers. "She's been runnin' from me for a week, and I ain't found shit." The girl heaved hard on the cigarette and then clamped it between her back teeth.

Kanji sucked in a shocked breath, and then regretted it, gagging. The smoke had already wafted over to where he was standing. "A _week!?_" he repeated, aghast. "You mean we've been in here a _week?_" He shook his head slowly. "So I guess she had a right to be so mad that no one's found us yet… A whole week…"

"Why would anyone come try and find _me?_" Shadow Kajiko demanded. She smacked the weight on the end of the blackjack against her palm and fiercely wrapped the sock around her bleeding hand, then took the cigarette out of her mouth and gestured with it. "Ha! D-don't be stupid! No one gives a rat's ass about Kajiko Tatsumi!"

Kanji blinked and rubbed his mouth. "So… that's how you really figure it is?"

"Don't try to get all sympathetic!" the girl snapped, coughing. "There ain't nothin' to be done about it! Like I care what the crowd thinks? Most humans are all boring, mindless _sheep!_" She swung the blackjack at the wall and knocked off a spray of plaster and stone. "So who gives a shit what they say? If I can't be good, then I'll be bad! I _like_ bein' bad!"

"Kajiko… isn't _bad_," said Kanji slowly. "Sure, she's a hothead… well, so'm I… but she's a good kid—"

"Shut the _fuck_ up," said Shadow Kajiko flatly. "You don't know me."

Kanji said nothing.

"Who even cares what people really think of me!" the girl went on angrily. "Isn't it so _pathetic _how I pretend to be bothered, when all I really want to do is show 'em the end of my fist? Old housewives who think I'm no good? I'll prove to 'em they're right! Let's go break their windows! Piss on their lawn, toilet paper all over their hedgerows, trip'em up on the street instead of helpin' em across! Why should I let 'em be wrong about me, huh?"

"I _do_ know Kajiko," said Kanji stubbornly. "She ain't a dumb thug like you."

Shadow Kajiko began to laugh hoarsely. "Like you know a thing about your _own_ true self! You don't even wanna admit that you feel just the same way!"

"What?" Kanji scratched his head. "Like I wanna just beat the shit out of everyone who ever looked at me funny? 'Course I feel like that sometimes. Everyone does, I bet. That don't make you so bad."

It was the Shadow's turn to fall silent. She stubbed her cigarette out on the nearest window sill and scraped her brass knuckles along the pane, etching an indecipherable word on the glass.

A notion of idea crawled into Kanji's brain. "So… it was you who drew all this crap on the walls, huh?"

"Yeah, I…" She leaned her forehead against the wall. "I got time to kill, y'know? Time to kill and a can of spray paint."

Kanji gave her a friendly thump on the arm. "Well, I think it's pretty cool," he said reluctantly. "It's some neat shit. Weird to say this, but… you got real talent."

Shadow Kajiko tensed, and then slumped down. "I'm not tryin' to make art here," she grumbled. "It's just graffiti. We're trashin' this place."

Kanji knelt by her side. "'We', huh? Who's 'we'?"

"Me 'n' my gang," muttered the girl. "We gonna tear this joint apart once we get together. I'm just softenin' it up for 'em."

"Kajiko…" Kanji said softly. "You got a gang?"

The girl buried her face in her knees. "No… I _wish_," she finally said, wiping her eyes. "But it's just me here… 's always just me, huh?"

"You got me," said Kanji hopefully. "Look, I ain't so nice that I won't wreck a place myself when I get in the mood. I could help out."

"You… you don't count," said Shadow Kajiko, sniffling. "You're not…"

"Yeah, I know I'm not, but still…" Kanji grabbed her by her elbow and pulled her to her feet. "Damn… don't get all weepy, okay? Here, I got somethin' for you…" He rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out an embroidered handkerchief.

The girl snatched up the cloth and pushed Kanji away. "I ain't cryin'," she said. "I don't need this." But she spread it out over her knee and devoured the pattern with her eyes. "Ha. It's kinda cute. You made this yourself?"

Kanji blew air out of the side of his mouth and looked away. "Yeah, I made that thing. What of it, huh? You got a problem with that?"

"You're messed up, dude," said Shadow Kajiko. "You're trippin' balls. The only one who's got a problem with this is you. You know that, right?"

"Yeah, if only," muttered Kanji. "How come they gotta say all those things, then?" He ran his fingers through his hair. "Oh, forget it. What am I sayin'? This is just plain stupid. Like any of this is important anymore."

"Of course it's important," said the girl, standing up and idly kicking the wall. "That's how all this stuff works in the Shadow World. Of course I was always too _stupid_ to figure things like that until it was too late, huh? I'm always too stupid."

"Naw, that ain't true," said Kanji, settling back with his hands in his pockets. "That's bullshit, man. We ain't stupid, neither of us."

The girl kicked the wall again, harder. "Oh, but Kajiko Tatsumi can't ever do shit," she said vindictively. "Not math, not spellin', not readin', not even talkin' to people. She ain't a proper lady, and she ain't never gonna be." She drew back her brass-knuckled fist and punched the stone. "The only thing _she _can do… the only thing _I_ can do… is be a real pain in people's ass. So I figure I'd better make a livin' offa that, since I can't do _anything_ else!"

"So you can't, uh… you can't do sewin' and all that?" Kanji's forehead wrinkled. "You _can_ do that stuff, can't you? If you're, you know, really _me?_"

"_Sewing!?_" shrieked Shadow Kajiko."_Knitting!?_ Who's gonna take me seriously if that's all I do? Nobody, that's who! And… and I can't do any of that with my life! If I did, people'd think I was a _good_ girl… and when they see I'm not, they'll all leave me!" She ran to the center of the room and scooped up the piles of chains. "_This_ is where I belong! Locked away, in a place where _everyone's_ bad! And that way, no one can act like _I'm_ the weird one!" She sank to her knees, giggling uncontrollably. "They'd have to accept me for who I am! They'd _have_ to!"

Kanji flinched. Were all the Shadows like this? Teetering on the precipice of madness, with exaggerated personalities and ludicrous fixations with the darker parts of the human soul? Well it made sense, perhaps, since that was what they claimed to be. How was it, anyway, that some Shadows acted like people and others like mindless beasts?

"Where do they _find_ you people?" Kanji muttered to himself. "You sound just like that freak copy of me, too."

"_What!?_ I'm nothin' like that… that hypocritical man-whore," the Shadow snapped. "We ain't alike at all!"

"Sure you are," said Kanji. "You're both frikkin' _lunatics!_"

When the girl turned around, the skeleton-shaped negative space on her tattooed skin seemed to glow in the light, like a cartoon X-ray effect that appeared when characters got electrocuted. It was certainly far more dramatic than a simple skull and crossbones on one arm, like what Kanji had.

Kanji felt a bead of sweat trickle down his neck. Unconsciously, he clung more tightly to the Laughing Table. "So j-just chill the hell out, okay?" he added lamely.

Shadow Kajiko pulled the long knife out of the floor and began to clean under her fingernails with it. "Oh, I'm chill. You're right, I am a lunatic. Ain't it cool?"

Kanji squinted at her. "I guess you could see it that way…"

"Y'know, I kinda like you," the girl said. "You're decent. Shame you're gonna die in like a minute."

Kanji swallowed. "Why's that, huh? _You_ gonna kill me?"

"That ain't in _my_ job description," shrugged the Shadow girl. "And I just said I kinda liked you,right? But you know that whiny creep? Your own Shadow? Yeah, he's in here. And he's gonna find you, one way or another."

"S-so… you Shadow people are, what?" Kanji worked it out in his head. "You guys are made to kill whoever you look like?"

"Well, you could put it like that," shrugged the girl. "You're the ones who do it to yourselves. We just help it along, y'know?"

"That's what _my_ Shadow said, too!" said Kanji, as a burst of memory hit him. "We do it to ourselves? The hell does that even mean? You think I wanna die?"

"There's a part of you that you don't like," said the Shadow matter-of-factly. "And guess what? In here, that part of you doesn't really like you back. So as long as you refuse to admit that it's a part of you, it'll be out there, tryin'a kill ya." She snorted. "If the _other_ Shadows don't get you first, that is."

"The other Shadows…" said Kanji, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. "You mean, the ones we've been seein' all over the damn place?"

"That's right," said Shadow Kajiko. She stretched herself out, flexed her muscles, and the luminescence in her eyes seemed to increase in strength. "You're one lucky punk, you know that? Survivin' this long after the fog cleared up… that was plain, dumb luck."

Kanji shook his head. "No way. It ain't just luck that I got away from my Shadow in the first place. It wasn't luck that got me past all those Shadows, and it wasn't luck that I ain't back in the bathhouse bein' stepped on by a hunk in a codpiece. I owe all that to Girl-Kanji bein' here."

Shadow Kajiko laughed. "Okay, so maybe it wasn't luck. But it wasn't all me, either. Why d'you think she even showed up in the first place?"

"Hell, I don't know," said Kanji. "I thought it was two universes goin' all…" He laced his fingers together. "Y'know, weavy. Ain't that it?"

"Oh, sure," said Shadow Kajiko. "Goin' all weavy… _that's_ probably it. Makes total sense to me."

Kanji had the feeling that anyone else would have thought she was being sarcastic. But he knew himself, and so he knew that she was being entirely sincere. "Right… so… So what does that actually mean?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out," the Shadow said amiably. "But you'd better find it out quick, 'cause you don't got much time left." She shrank back into the darkness in the corner of the room. "I'm real sorry I can't chat longer. But there's a thing I gotta do. I need to know… what kinda person I really am."

"What... kind of person you really are...?" murmured Kanji, feeling the blood drain from his face.

He thought he was beginning to understand Shadow Kajiko now. The girl was full of affect and posture, but she had a genuine streak that he couldn't help but respect. She was, though she denied it, very much like Table-chan; she craved recognition, eagerly devoured any human contact she could find. And she was very much like Kanji's Shadow. Though she was wrapped up in bitterness and rejection, she bared her soul to anyone, open to the air like a torn callous, unable to contain herself. In fact, he could see the resemblance between them, as plain as day. It was pretty silly, really, that you could even think of them all as different people.

There was still the problem that he couldn't work around, the part of all this that he refused to let fall into place. Nothing he'd done here had seemed to indicate that he was what his Shadow said he was. He certainly saw how Kajiko could have had this… this sad, desperate being that was Shadow Kajiko trapped inside her. He thought he could understand where she was coming from, although there were still some pieces of the picture missing. But Kanji didn't know what to make of all the things that Shadow Kanji had been saying.

Something had stuck in his mind, though, something that Kajiko's Shadow had echoed and brought back up in Kanji's memory.

"_Dammit, of course it's empty! You think ANYONE really wants to be around me?_" The Shadow boy had pointed at Kanji. "_And it's all YOUR fault! If you just made up your damn mind about who you were, you wouldn't have to push everyone away because you're too scared they'll decide all that for you!_"

"Argh! It doesn't make any sense!" Kanji groaned. "If I push everyone away, then why do I want to be accepted? And if I want to be accepted, then why would I _want_ to let the things that other people say about me be true? And if that's how it is, then why don't I want to care what people think about me?" He held the Laughing Table out in front of him and glared at its hollow eyes. "Where the hell do you come into all this? What part of me are _you?_ And what… what in the hell does all this have to do with girls and boys and all those things my Shadow can't stop yammerin' about?"

Kanji stamped his foot on the floor. "Screw this!" he shouted. "I've had enough of bein' in the dark about everything! Dammit, why can't someone just explain it all to me! Someone! Anyone! Even that damn sissy Shadow's got to have some answers for me, but where _is_ he?"

The boy sank to his knees. "I've been stuck in a freaky spirit world for a week and the only people I've met are pieces of myself! Am I goin' crazy?" He shut his eyes and clutched his head. "Who the hell _am I?_"

As if on cue, the door behind him burst open.

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**End note: Please, please, please, please, please review! (as you can see, I've dropped all subtleties about it).**


	15. You'll never be me!

**Author's Note: God I'm sorry for taking so long with this. It's been like a few months, hasn't it? Well no matter, because here you go! Enjoy the update!**

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**#15: You'll never be me!**

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Kajiko had her hammer on her shoulder as she walked up the last flight of stairs. She looked back at the other Kanji, who was angrily waving his hands at a group of Shadows, sending lightning bolts haphazardly into their midst. "I'm running out of spell-power here!" coughed Shadow Kanji. "Can we _please_ get on with it?"

"I'm waitin' for _you!_" Kajiko snapped. "Stop wasting your time with those guys! We got other things to worry about." She leaned against the wall and took a few seconds to breathe. "You sure Kanji's right behind this door up here?"

"Oh, I'm _fabulously_ sure," said Shadow Kanji vehemently. "Trust me, he was just thinking about me." But he was straying back anyway. "Can you… go on ahead without me?"

"What?" said Kajiko. "You kiddin' me?"

Shadow Kanji looked abashed. "I… y'see… like you said, it's a bad mix, a person and their Shadow in the same room together…" He clenched his fists. "I already… can hardly _resist_ going in there and…"

"I get the picture," Kajiko sighed. "Thanks, I guess." She lifted the hammer and crept up the last few steps. "Now get outta here."

"Who, me?" said Shadow Kanji. His features writhed with indecision. "Oh. Haha. Me, of course. I'll just… I'll just be down here. _Waiting_. I mean… just… waiting."

Kajiko tried the handle of the door. Locked, not to her surprise. She raised the hammer high over her head.

"Use the _key_," Shadow Kanji hissed at her shoulder. "The one we found from those—"

Kajiko paused. "Weren't you gonna leave?"

"Yeah, totally…" said the Shadow unconvincingly, flapping down the steps. "Here I goooo…"

Still wary, Kajiko turned and, after a few fumbles, unlocked the door. Its bolt snapped back and when the girl put all her strength behind it, it flew open with a crash.

Seeing the light-haired figure kneeling on the ground, Kajiko sighed with relief. "Yo! Kanji-kun!" she shouted. "You okay?"

Something rushed by her and beat her out to reaching the prostrate youth. Shadow Kanji flew by with a whoop and slid to a halt in front of his human self. "Oh, you poor _dear!_" he cried gleefully, pursing his lips and placing his hands on Kanji's shoulders. "You look simply _awful!_ Having a little existential crisis, are we?"

"Dammit! Get off me!" yelped Kanji reflexively.

"That scheming little creep," Kajiko snarled, and then charged into the room. "You said you weren't gonna do this! You _promised!_"

Shadow Kanji glanced up at her. "I'm _sorry,_" he said, "but I simply couldn't _stop_ myself." He began to back away when he saw Kajiko raising her hammer. "All right! All right! I did promise I wouldn't do anything… too impolite."

Kanji shot to his feet and straightened his jacket grumpily. "G-good!" he said grumpily. "'Cause… there's some things I want explained. Right now."

Shadow Kanji raised an eyebrow. "You _want_ to talk to me?" His eyes welled up and he wriggled with anticipation. "Oh, I'm so _flattered!_"

"Ugh! Stop actin' so… so…" Kanji shook his head. "Okay, listen. There's just one thing I… I gotta know." He scowled furiously. "Am I really… you know… like that?"

"I don't know," shrugged his Shadow. "_Are_ you?"

Startled, Kanji lifted his eyes up to meet his Shadow's stare. "What!?" he squawked. "I thought you were the one with all the answers! You're sayin'… what, it's up to me?"

"That's what you've been suspecting all this time, isn't it?" asked Shadow Kanji. "Maybe it's not something you can just _know_. Maybe you're one thing, maybe you're the other, maybe you're a little bit of both." He spread his hands out. "Or maybe all this business about being a _man _doesn't even matter. You're only fifteen, after all."

"Huh?" Kanji crossed his arms. "What, and bein' fifteen means I ain't a man yet?"

"I don't know," the Shadow repeated. "What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be 'manly'?"

Kanji breathed out slowly. "Huh…" he said.

"I'll tell you what it means," said a new voice. Kajiko froze, and her gaze slowly focused on the figure in the corner of the room. "It means to you, a girl like me ain't worth _shit_."

It had to be her Shadow, Kajiko though numbly. The mad expression, the uncanny resemblance, the yellow eyes. This was the voice she had heard in the prison the last time she'd been here.

Kajiko took several long strides backwards, carrying her almost to the door. "That ain't true! I'm worth something!" she retorted angrily. "I'm worth as much as any guy!"

"Not to them, we ain't," said Shadow Kajiko, stepping out of the gloom. "And _I_ don't really think I'm worth anything either."

"No…" whispered Kajiko. "No! Shut _up!_"

"Kajiko Tatsumi can't do _anything_ except get in trouble," the Shadow went on mockingly. "So you know what I say? I say, _embrace _it! I don't care what they think! I don't want to have to be better than average just to earn a tiny little bit of people's respect. I want to be _bad_."

"I _don't!_" said Kajiko. "That's bullsh—that's not true!"

Kajiko's Shadow clenched her fists. "God, how I _hate_ men! They're so entitled! That's why I go out of my way to get into so many fights. I just want to punch in their dumb smug faces. Teach them to think of me as _inferior_."

"I don't _hate_—" Kajiko tried to say.

"Except that I _am_," whispered Shadow Kajiko. "That's what really stings, isn't it? I can't be as good as them because I can't be as good as _anyone_."

Shadow Kanji stepped between them. "Cut it _out!_" he growled, and Kajiko had to look and watch his lips moving to be sure that it wasn't actually Kanji speaking. "You put it like that, it's no wonder you ain't gonna get accepted. Leave her alone."

"Oh," said Shadow Kajiko. "It's _you_. My male self, is it? Or at least, that what they _say _you are… I'm not so sure about that…" She crossed her tattooed arms. "You think you can tell me what to do, huh? You think you're better'n me, just because you're a _guy?_"

"I don't really—" the other Kanji started to say.

"You're the one that wants to _transcend gender barriers_, huh?" interrupted Kajiko's Shadow, grinding the heel of her shoe into the floor. "Well you know what? You're not 'transcending' any goddamn gender barriers at all! You're doing the opposite!" Flinging her arms out in wild gesticulation, she added, "In fact, you're just like all the other men in the world! It don't matter whether they _say_ they like women or not, because they _never_ really do!"

"What the hell does that mean?" asked Kanji, bemused. "Guys… don't like girls? How could you know that?"

"Because _I'm_ a girl, dumbass!" Shadow Kajiko shouted. "And I know what men think of us… They might not put on lisps and prance naked through saunas, but they might as well! Maybe they aren't in love with other men, but they're all in love with the idea of manhood!" Her shoulders were shaking with pent-up anger and anguish. "It ain't about romance at all! It's about goddamn respect! I don't know which is worse… a guy who treats you like you're some kinda fancy shiny trophy to win, or just plain shutting you out, like you don't belong at all! Either way, it's pretty clear that you're not worth _shit_ to them for who you really are! Talk about rejection! They don't even give you the chance!"

Kanji's Shadow was staring at the other Kajiko like she was a completely different person. His voice came out sounding choked and angry. "You… do you really think you have _any idea _what it's like to be shut out like this? What I've had to go through?"

"Maybe I do!" insisted the Shadow girl. "If you're him… and he's the same as the girl, and she's me, then aren't you me as well? I should have a damn good idea, then, yeah!"

"I don't think that's how it works," said Shadow Kanji.

"I don't really think so either," agreed Shadow Kajiko. "Because there's no way in hell that—"

"No _way_ that you're—" Kanji's Shadow screeched.

The two were fighting to say it first. "There's no _way!_" the Shadow girl repeated shrilly. "That! You're! _ME!_"

And the shadows in the room began to move, becoming Capitalized, swirling towards the two human-forms in the center of the room and filling them with glowing blackness.

Kanji looked at Kajiko. "We gotta get out of here," he said, eyes wide. "Seriously, like, we gotta get out _now!_"

"Yeah, I know it!" the girl exclaimed. She wheeled around, but the door swung shut with a booming clang. "Shit!"

The two humans pressed their backs to the door, straining with all their might, but it was useless. "You don't have any of those keys, do you?" asked Kanji. "You got in here, didn't you?"

"I _did_," Kajiko complained. "Damn thing broke in the lock once I got the door open! Ain't that typical?"

The two K. Tatsumis turned around and watched their Shadow doubles with identical expressions of terror. "Well, it was nice knowing you," said Kajiko, extending a hand.

"Same," said Kanji, and shook it. "You really helped out with… a lot of stuff I was going through. So, uh… thanks."

"Nah," Kajiko told him. "No way. I didn't do anything. You're the one who made me realize that what I really needed wasn't to be tough. It was to be strong." Her knees were wobbling, her vision was going fuzzy. "H-hey," she added hoarsely. "Look at that. I'm…"

"M-me too," Kanji admitted, wavering. "Guess this is it…"

Kajiko tried to respond, but she had lost her voice. Her body was shutting off, bit by bit. She tried to stay upright. If they let this unnatural sleep take hold, they'd be easy pickings for the smaller Shadows. Instead, she turned her eyes to the massive figures emerging in the center of the room.

The room, which unfolded before their eyes into an arena, stretching as far as the eye could see, with hazy struts and pillars in the distance. It was like the prison knew it could never be large enough to contain the two combatants, and so redesigned itself.

Kanji's Shadow burst into form first. His body was stocky and ludicrously muscular, with coal-gray skin. Rather than a head, the neck of the form sported a bed of many-colored roses, in which the naked human form was encased. His titanic arms were wielding a pair of Mars symbols, which made Kajiko roll her eyes. How blatant of him.

Then the smoke cleared, and Shadow Kajiko stomped out. Her form was – and there was no getting around this – absolutely terrifying. Her tattoos had merged together into a black shell, but beyond that broken carapace, nothing but bone could be seen. She had become a skeleton, held together by pure darkness. Electricity crackled out of her joints and wreathed the wrecking ball of a blackjack that she was swinging around her head.

The two Shadows circled each other, starting with feints, testing the waters. Then Kajiko's Shadow grew impatient, and she smashed her blackjack down. Shadow Kanji dodged backwards, cackling. "_You can't get me so easy! The only way this is going to end is if one of us accepts the other, and that's never going to happen!_"

"_Not if I tear you to pieces first!_" screamed Shadow Kajiko, and she charged at her male counterpart. "_You scared of me, punk?_"

Normal Kanji and Normal Kajiko, in the meantime, had sunk to their knees "I can't… I can't stay up!" Kajiko growled. "Come on, dude, knock some sense into me!"

"H-huh?" said Kanji. "Whuh…?" He flopped down to the floor. "Ugh… I'm too tired…"

Kajiko grabbed Kanji by the shoulders and then bashed her forehead into his. "Wake up!" she shouted murkily. Sparks popped in her vision, but it seemed to have done the trick.

"Ow!" Kanji yelped, rubbing his skull. "Yo, I mean, was that really necessary—?"

"Yes!" Kajiko jumped to her feet. "Those two are gonna tear this place apart!"

"_You're sooo in denial,_" Shadow Kanji said, as he lunged at Shadow Kajiko. "_You don't want a gang! You just want people to forgive you for being born a girl!_"

"_You're the one who's deluded,_" rasped the armored skeleton. "_You don't even know if you're gay or not! You just went with that because it's easier to accept than the idea that you might be lonely!_" She caught the Mars disk by its arrow and turned the strike down into the floor, then swiped at the air, trying to snatch Shadow Kanji's human form out of his nest of petals. "_And you kid yourself with the idea that GIRLS are the problem! We're no better off than you!_"

"Kanji! Watch your six!" Kajiko tried to lift her hammer up, but her arms felt like lead slabs. "There's a Shadow tailing you!"

"Yeah, I see it." The boy's face turned into a grimace, and he put up his fists, his fatigued feet sliding into a fighting stance. "Bring it on."

The oily mass lunged up and struck out at Kanji with a set of smoky claws. He tried to dodge it, but was too sluggish. The Shadow raked a set of glowing marks through the boy's face. The marks faded quickly, but they left Kanji reeling.

Kajiko considered throwing her hammer, but felt that might be taking the risk of hitting Kanji instead. So she forced her legs to move, taking a few dreamy steps forward.

Something struck her from behind and cast her down to the floor. Wincing, Kajiko tried to look behind her. It was a robed figure in a jester's hat, wiggling a pair of giant hands that spread out from its back like wings. Another Shadow, she woozily thought, feeling so helpless it was like a physical pain, a dull ache in her chest.

Cloth brushed against Kajiko's cheek. She raised her face and stared into the mask of the Laughing Table. It was struggling towards her, flat on the ground.

"What happened to you, girl?" Kajiko asked miserably. "Your legs…" A fierce mask came over her features. "It was my Shadow, wasn't it? Dammit! I'll kill her!"

"_You'll never be me!_" howled Shadow Kajiko, splintering the floor with her massive blackjack as she chased down the rose-encrusted figure. "_Did you hear that? Never!_"

"_And you'll never be me either!_" Shadow Kanji shouted back, nearly in tears. "_Boys and girls are just too different! That's a fact!_"

"_That's bullshit!_" spat Shadow Kajiko. "_You just want to let people simplify everything for you!_"

The two giants were grappling, digging their heels into the floor, sparks flying from their weapons. Shadow Kanji had Shadow Kajiko by the neck with one of his Mars rings, but she soon twisted away and dealt him a solid blow to the kneecap. Neither one seemed to be gaining much ground.

Kajiko rolled away from another blast of energy cast by the sorcerous Shadow. At first she thought that she was seeing double, then realized that it was the Shadows themselves that were multiplying. More bad news…

She felt a rush of wind over her head and then the floor lurched. Shadow Kajiko landed firmly in front of her human counterpart, and then the bony hands were reaching out towards their prey, the jaws of the skull coming unhinged as its bite widened to an impossible degree.

"Bring it… on…" growled Kajiko, struggling to stand. "I'll… frikkin'… end you…"

"Kajiko! Little help here?"

The girl turned, and saw Kanji backing up to the wall, cornered by his own muscular grinning Shadow.

Suddenly the armored skeleton leaning towards her didn't seem even close to being the worst of her problems. "Hey!" shouted Kajiko, enraged beyond imagining. "Leave him _alone!_"

Shadow Kanji froze. "_You're commanding… me?_" he said incredulously.

"Yeah, I am!" said the girl. "I'm telling you to back the hell off!" She balled her fists. "I can't believe this! I thought we understood each other!"

"Yo, bone-bitch!" Kanji yelled to the skeleton, not caring in the slightest that his Shadow was currently mere meters away. "Get away from—agh!" A lesser Shadow reared up behind Kanji and dealt him a terrific blow, sending him reeling forward. From the ground, he croaked, "You don't have to do this! You don't have to be bad… just because you aren't perfect!"

Shadow Kajiko's gaping jaw slowly clacked shut, and the behemoth scrunched itself inwards, as if warding off a blow. "_Don't… treat me… like I'm human_..." she growled.

"Yeah, but you _are!_" Kanji insisted, struggling to get to his feet. "You're a part of her, a part of Kajiko! And that means you're human too! You ain't a monster!"

"She's not part of me!" exclaimed Kajiko, her face twisting up with misery. "I don't… I'm nothin' like her!"

Kanji reached out a pleading hand. "Listen… Kajiko…" He felt his consciousness crumbling away as the Shadows around him began to wrap around his body, strangling away any form of thought. "I… know you… an' I know her… and…" He struggled against the darkness. "It ain't anything to be ashamed of. Bein' bad at…bein' good. I mean, what does being 'good' really mean, anyway?"

The girl clutched at her hair, shaking her head frantically. "I'm not a thug! I'm not a shameless disgrace to my family! _I won't accept that!_"

"No! You ain't… any of those things!" Kanji coughed, with his last shred of thought. "You might not act the way most girls do… but you're a good person…" His head dropped to the floor; his tongue had grown heavy and hard to move. "You shouldn't be scared of accepting yourself, Kaji-chan… Only a damn fool would ever think… that who you really are… is worth being ashamed o—"

He didn't finish. The Shadows wreathing him dealt their final blow, cutting him off, and Kanji's limp body seemed to darken, as if a spotlight coming from within him had been shut off.

Kajiko looked up into the glowing eye-sockets of the armored skeleton standing above her. She felt detached, impassive, like a cord linking her thoughts to her emotions had been severed. Something was holding back the reservoir of anguish and terror that should have been crashing through her right now. Instead, she felt bone-dry – empty, drained.

It was probably shock, but she didn't care.

"What does happen?" she asked hollowly, "to a Shadow when its source dies?"

Shadow Kajiko lifted her blackjack high into the air, ready to smash the girl kneeling on the ground in front of her massive body… but she never brought it down.

* * *

A boy lay sleeping in his bedroom. Outside the windows, a thick fog covered the streets. A gray jacket had been draped over his television set, but it didn't disguise the light as it flicked on, entirely of its own accord.

Yu Narukami's eyes slowly opened, but he didn't want to look over at the screen. It would only tell him what he already knew, which was that he'd failed. Kanji Tatsumi would become another lifeless body hanging from the wires somewhere. Yu wondered if he could ever bring himself to face the world again.

"_Well… well… well… such _naughtiness_…_" A voice; low, dangerous, strangely sensual, and definitely familiar. As if Yu could escape the shame. Shadow Kanji would be gloating, of course. He'd won.

But then a second voice, a distorted female one, spitting with shock and indignation. "_What the _shit_ do you think you're doing?_"

Yu sat up straight in his bed. _What!?_ Where was this other voice coming from!?

Shadow Kanji again. "_I'm not going to let you take her. So come at me… bone-bitch._"

Yu half-turned his head towards the TV. That hadn't sounded very in-character for Shadow Kanji. He'd sounded _angry_, genuinely outraged. And he wasn't addressing the camera like Shadows normally did in the Midnight Channel. He was speaking to someone else.

The female voice. "_You'd give up your chance… to take your own prey… just so you can play at bein' some dumbass hero?_"

Shadow Kanji. "_You got it. Now back. Off._"

Unable to contain his curiosity, Yu slid out of bed and scrambled over to the TV, yanking the makeshift cover off. But before he could make anything out, a bright flash of white light blanked out the screen, and Yu fell back, wondering just what it was he'd nearly been privy to seeing.

* * *

**Just so you guys know, I've got some awfully long things to try to finish (work-related) and I might not be able to be very prompt about my next update. So just hang in there until the next chapter - #16: RISE UP**


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